


So Am I (The Prequel)

by Huntress79, pherryt



Series: Broken [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Bi!Dean, Clubbing, Coming Out, Depression, F/M, Healing, Hopeful/Happy Ending, M/M, Memory Issues, Other Characters - Freeform, date rape drugs, fallout and recovery from this, hooking up with strangers, mechanic!Dean, mentions of Castiel, non graphic underage rape/trauma, pre-destiel, supportive family and friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-18 22:52:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 39,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13691514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huntress79/pseuds/Huntress79, https://archiveofourown.org/users/pherryt/pseuds/pherryt
Summary: By the time Dean was 15, he’d already learned the hard way – again and again and again – that life wasn’t fair. And he certainly didn’t need any reminders of that. Life, however, felt differently.Now he lives with his brother and Uncle Bobby, he’s a high school drop out after an incident at a party he can’t quite remember but knows happened. Worst yet, almost everyone around him seems to know it too, to one degree or another, and he can’t bear going back to face the whispers, judgement and torments of his peers.Between Uncle Bobby, Sheriff Jody, Pastor Jim and his best friend, Charlie, they keep Dean going. Help him get back on his feet, get his GED and be the big brother Sam needs him to be.Dean hits a few rough patches on the way. But when his high school crush speaks up on his behalf, when the man responsible for Dean’s nightmares gets sent away, when he meets a lonely girl who gets judged as harshly as he does, Dean begins to hope that things will work out.





	1. Alastair

**Author's Note:**

> Well, we're finally here! *huge sigh of relief* This story seemed absolutely cursed the entire time I was writing it.
> 
> Through NOBODY'S fault (let me stress that): there were technical glitches that caused communications issues with **my wonderful artist** (Make sure to say hi! Her preferred playground is on [Livejournal as Sandy79](https://sandy79.livejournal.com/)), my original Beta had life get in the way and I needed to scramble for a last minute **Beta** ( [tellthenight](http://archiveofourown.org/users/tellthenight) (A03) / [Tellthenight (Tumblr)](http://tellthenight.tumblr.com/) really came to my rescue! And had a very short turnaround too! Thanks so much! Your help added quite a bit of depth to certain scenes I'd been too nervous to really go into beforehand) which caused me to ask for an extension (the Mods were very helpful all along the way and I'm so sorry for being such a PITA) and then the story started fighting me right when I thought I was almost done. 
> 
> I almost gave up, but my **Alpha** ([Lotrspnfangirl (A03)](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lotrspnfangirl) / [ Lotrspnfangirl (Tumblr)](https://lotrspnfangirl.tumblr.com/) convinced me this wasn't garbage and that I was probably just so frustrated with a lot of the problems getting tossed my way that I lost perspective. Thank you for making sure I didn't toss in the towel!
> 
>  
> 
> **All that said - THIS IS A PREQUEL!**
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks to some conversation that grew out of editing my CBB (I'm Broken) with [Unforth (A03)](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Unforth) / [Unforth-Ninawaters (Tumblr)](http://unforth-ninawaters.tumblr.com/), this was born. She thought Dean got preachy in one of the chapters (he did) and i alluded that there were reasons why and she really wanted to know what those were (among other things :D). When I first signed up for the DWBB, I thought I would be writing the _Sequel_ to I'm Broken (In fact, I wrote the majority of chapters 5 and 6 first with the intent that they'd be the beginning) but quickly realized that it wouldn't flow right for working in Dean's past and skipping all the stuff we already knew.
> 
> So i guess this is going to be a three parter. Just don't quote me on WHEN that sequel will finally appear.
> 
>  
> 
> **ABOUT THE TAGS/WARNINGS**
> 
>  
> 
> There is Rape/Non con in this story while Dean is underage. It's a one time thing right in this very first chapter and it is NOT Graphically described. This story is pretty much Dean dealing and healing from it.
> 
>  **EDIT - Art Additions!**  
>  The Art Master post went up while I was at work and i had a 10 hour shift - i'm so sorry this and the new chapter headers are late!
> 
> [Art Masterpost on A03 ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13706703) or you can view it on [DreamWidth](https://sandy79.dreamwidth.org/94929.html)

  


By the time Dean was fifteen, he’d already learned the hard way – again and again and again – that life wasn’t fair. And he certainly didn’t need any further reminders of that. Life, however, felt differently.

For the most part, life had gotten better after Sam and Dean had come to live with Bobby. Dean both hated and loved his dad. He’d hated what John started to become – but John had also seen where he was headed and had taken steps.

He’d sent his boys away.

Dean had resented that for a long time, and yet… the older he got, the more he understood that maybe it had been for the best.  John died not long after Bobby officially became their legal guardian and Dean eventually realized  that… well, that John had done it to protect them, to make sure they’d gotten the care that he could no longer provide, Dean went from resenting his father to missing him something fierce.

But nowadays, for the most part, Dean had adjusted to life with Bobby and everything that came with it; life in a new town and a new school, a new routine.  Upstate, New York was quite the change from Lawrence, Kansas, but eventually he got used to it.

Charlie Bradbury, geek extraordinaire, had helped  _ immensely _ with that. When Dean, newly arrived, felt out of place, she’d taken one look at his Star Wars shirt and introduced herself. From then on, Dean had a kindred spirit, a best friend, and a confident. When he first started to realize he was attracted to both girls  _ and  _ guys, it was Charlie who’d helped him to navigate the minefield online to figure out what that mean and to validate it.

It was Charlie who knew about his big ass crush on Victor Henriksen, a senior and the football captain. Dean didn’t care that Victor was two years older than him, he never intended on making his crush known to begin with. But he could admire from afar and if he got too drooly, he had trusty Charlie to knock him over the head so people wouldn’t notice. 

Dean wasn’t ready yet to come out -- not even to Sam and Uncle Bobby. He just couldn’t work up the courage, though he was pretty sure the squirt wouldn’t care – Sam often looked up to his big brother, something Dean tried to live up to. Uncle Bobby… Dean just didn’t know. He didn’t  _ think  _ Bobby would care, but his uncle was an adult from an older generation where things weren’t always as open or as tolerated as the rest of the world was slowly becoming.

As much as Dean didn’t  _ think  _ Bobby would care, he was scared. He’d already lost his home – not once, but twice now – and he didn’t want to lose it again.

Didn’t want to leave Sam, if it came to that.

So he gritted his teeth, dated a few cheerleaders, and kept his mouth shut.

And that was his modus operandi, despite Charlie encouraging him to come out. When he didn’t, she held her tongue, and he could equally trust her to have his back.

Usually held her tongue, anyway.

Today, he wasn’t so lucky.

“What the frack, Dean? You’re not seriously  _ thinking  _ about going to that party, are you?” Charlie hissed at lunchtime.

“Why not?” he asked around a mouthful of his sandwich.

“Dude, it’s going to be at Ketch’s place. That guy is seriously… sketchy…” She paused as she realized what she said, then shook it and kept going, “And so’s his dad! They really give me the frickin’ creeps. And at least half the football team is just as bad.”

“Not all of them!” Dean protested.

Charlie rolled her eyes. “Oh yes, lest we forget the dreamy Victor Henriksen. It’s not worth it Dean! I’m telling you, do  _ not  _ go!”

“What about Dorothy?” Dean asked shrewdly.

“What about her?” she countered suspiciously, eyes narrowing.

“You totally thought she was worth getting into trouble for, so what’s the big diff?” Dean pointed out before taking another big bite of his sandwich, then talking around the mouthful. “If I recall correctly, you got grounded for a month!”

“Pfft… that’s different. I’m talking serious trouble here, Dean. Like, you could get hurt, trouble. I won’t ever step in that house again, and I will never hang out with Ketch or even Gordon alone. It doesn’t matter that I’m a lesbian… If a guy wants something, he can take it, and I don’t trust those two in the slightest.” Charlie slapped her hand down on the table and glared at Dean and he rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, but I’m a guy. How much trouble can I get into?” Dean shrugged his shoulder and met his best friend’s eyes across the table. “Don’t worry about me, Charlie, I’ll be fine,” Dean insisted.

“Have you told Bobby you’re going to this party?”

“Uhh…” Dean stalled.

“Exactly. You  _ know _ he’d say no. You  _ know  _ he wouldn’t approve. Which is why you’re not telling him. Which should be telling  _ you  _ something.” 

Charlie, he had to admit, might be on to something. But he wasn’t going to let that stop him.

“Look, what if we put some safeties in place?” he said desperately. He really wanted to go to this party. He may never actually hit on Victor, but he could still interact with him. It made him feel all fluttery inside to think of Victor paying any kind of attention to Dean.

“Like what?” she asked slowly, as if she were considering it. _ Score! _ Dean thought.

“Um, well, like, check in points. What if… if I don’t check in by certain times, you call Bobby to pick my ass up?” Dean suggested.

Slowly, Charlie grinned. “Brilliant! I like it. Though I’d like it  _ better _ if you had a wingman.”

“You could always come with me?” Dean asked hopefully.

Charlie shuddered. “Oh, hell no! I told you, I’m never going anywhere near those guys again.”

“Bradbury, spill, did they  _ do  _ something to you?” Dean dropped his sandwich and scowled at the thought of anyone laying a hand on his best friend against her will.

“Oh, no. They haven’t touched me but… they’ve just… said some things I really, really didn’t like, okay? Let’s just drop it.” She shifted in her seat uneasily, but the matter was dropped.

Preparations for sneaking out weren’t all that hard. Sam didn’t question that Dean was going out and Bobby trusted Dean when he said he was going to spend the night at a friend’s. He just hadn’t specified  _ which  _ friend. If Bobby assumed it was Charlie then… was that  _ Dean’s  _ fault? Besides, he didn’t plan to stay all night anyway, returning to Charlie’s at some point, so it really wasn’t a lie, right?

Despite his bravado in front of Charlie, Dean was actually quite anxious for this party. He didn’t  _ really  _ believe it would end up being like it was in the movies, which was why he was so willing to take the chance. But… what if he was wrong? 

He heaved a sigh of relief when he got there and stood in the yard for a second taking in the innocent looking house. It was neat and clean. There didn’t seem to be a million people, no loud ass music, though there was definitely music playing. It seemed… tame.

Gathering his courage, Dean stepped up to the door and knocked. The door whipped open and Ketch stood there, looking down at Dean with a sneer. Okay, so Charlie was right, Ketch was creepy as all hell. Dean wasn’t going to let that ruin his good time though.

“Hey, uh, did I get the right night?” Dean asked nervously.

Ketch rolled his eyes and opened the door wider to allow Dean in. “Yeah, I don’t know who invited you but, you might as well come on in. Don’t break anything.”

Dean nodded, a sinking feeling roiling through his gut. Truth be told, he couldn’t actually remember  _ how  _ he found out about the party. All he knew was he hadn’t gone to one before and that  _ Victor  _ would be there since the rest of the team would be too. He stepped past Ketch and into the house. It was still somewhat early, but the whole football team was there as he’d expected, among others. All the cheerleaders too.

_ Shit _ . Was that how he’d heard about it? Maybe he’d forgotten he was supposed to bring one of the girls with him? Dean hoped to god that wasn’t it. He didn’t want to get slapped because he’d forgotten. But no, he wasn’t dating any of them currently, so… he was off the hook? Maybe? God, he hoped so.

Ketch left him quickly and Dean wandered aimlessly, trying to find a place where he could fit in. Maybe Charlie had been right... None of the people he usually mingled with were even here, except the cheerleaders. Maybe he could talk to Victor about possibly joining the football team? Yeah, that would give him something to talk about and help him stop feeling like an imposter.

And not so coincidentally, allow him to _ talk _ to the guy he was crushing on. Oh God, what if he made a fool out of himself?

“Dean?” Dean turned. Speak of the devil and he should appear. Victor looked surprised to see him and – wait a second, how did Victor know his name? Dean was a sophomore, wasn’t on the team, didn’t run in the usual circles Victor would and --  _ Shit! Victor knows my name?!!  _ Victor was looking at him and Dean realized if the football captain had said anything else, he’d completely missed it in his mini freak out.

“Oh, uh, hi, Victor!” Dean said, putting on a big grin. Or trying to anyway. “So, um… good party?” Internally, he groaned,  _ Winchester, that was weak. So very weak _ .

“Eh, these parties aren’t usually my cup of tea. I just put in an appearance at the beginning and then I head home. But a lot of people seem to like them, I guess.” Victor shrugged, looking around the room.

“Oh, really? Yeah, I dunno. This is my first party. Not sure what to think of it just yet…” Dean looked around just trying to feel the space out.

Victor laughed. “Hey, no harm if you don’t like it.” 

Dean grinned at Victor’s easy going manner and simple camaraderie, though he was still stunned about the fact Victor was even talking to him.  _ Him. _ Dean Winchester! Oddball, geek, and a little louder in class than he should be and usually a thorn in his teacher's sides. Well, actually, maybe that’s  _ why  _ Victor knew about a fellow schoolmate a few years his junior? It made all sorts of sense, now that he thought about it. He bit his lip and decided to take the bull by the horns.

“So, um, Victor, I was thinking of… of… maybe? Joining the football team. Do you think I should try out next year?” Dean managed to get out. Victor’s eyebrows had risen by the time he’d turned to look at Dean again.

“Well, football never seemed like it was something you’d be into, but, I think you’d do well if you wanted to try it,” Victor replied. Dean just about melted as the man pointedly looked Dean up and down, mentally sizing him up. He had to tell himself that it wasn’t  _ that  _ kind of a look to avoid becoming a puddle on the floor. Now he was  _ glad  _ Charlie wasn’t here to witness his embarrassing behavior.

“Awesome,” Dean said in a daze, grinning happily. “That’s… that’s awesome. So um, you got any advice? I mean, you are the captain and all…”  _ Smooth, Winchester, smooth _ . Dean mentally patted himself on the back. 

Soon, the two of them were embroiled in football talk. Dean knew a lot about the game just from  _ watching  _ the games (watching Victor, more like) and Victor seemed impressed with his knowledge. Before Dean knew it, he was surrounded by pretty much the entire football team as they handed him advice, or discussed a previous game or play. He was drowning in so much sudden attention, he never realized when Victor left.

It was somewhat disappointing when he  _ did  _ notice but he was actually enjoying himself. Dean had set the groundwork for more interactions with Victor and that was good, even if he had already left. 

_ This party isn’t so bad after all _ , he thought, taking a sip of his drink. It tasted funny, he suddenly realized. But then Dean saw that the people around him were starting to be… well, drunk, all holding beers or red solo cups like him. It was probably the alcohol he was drinking. It wasn’t like he had a wide wealth of knowledge when it came to drinking. Dean sometimes snuck a sip out of Bobby’s liquor cabinet, but the man was a creature of habit. Cheap beers, cheap whiskey, and a homemade still. Normally, Dean didn’t really drink all that much – his father being a cautionary tale  right th ere – but, well, he was at a party and he was having fun and everyone seemed to be getting one. What would one or two drinks hurt?

Of course, one or two turned into three or four or… Actually, he lost count. His head was dizzy and was stumbling to reach the bathroom. It was almost time for a check in with Charlie. He ducked inside and almost fell over, his limbs starting to feel leaden. Maybe he should cut himself off after this? Yeah, that would be a good idea. His fingers fumbled over the keyboard on his phone but he grinned triumphantly when he succeeded in sending off the text. He pocketed his phone…well, tried to pocket his phone. It took him several tries to successfully get his phone into his pants. Then he turned to the toilet, the movement slow, but still making him dizzy. With a groan, he braced himself on the wall and dropped his pants.

He blinked and he was no longer alone in the bathroom. He tried to say something – hadn’t he locked the door? How drunk was he?

Dean blinked again and he wasn’t even  _ in  _ the bathroom anymore.

Another blink – was he naked? Why was he naked? Why was his head so… so… floaty and dizzy? Was it the alcohol?

Dean felt disconnected, lost.

Voices around him, movement, laughter.

Didn’t anyone see there was something wrong with him? Where was his phone? He needed to call Charlie or Bobby.

Someone was touching him – Dean tried to open his eyes – why was it so hard to open his eyes?

There was a lot of touching now – and pain.

So much…why was he… what was… what was…

There was screaming – who was screaming? Was that… was that him?

Then it all went mercifully black.

Dean blinked painfully awake, clothed and sore, laying in the bushes of… of… where the hell was he? Head pounding, he tried to sit up and groaned, gritting his teeth against the pain. He squinted around the yard. He had no idea where he was. Something chirped and he patted down his pants for his phone. Each movement was slow and agonizing. This couldn’t all be because he’d gotten drunk, could it? Honestly, he couldn’t remember much past the bathroom. God, he hoped he hadn’t made a fool out of himself. How would he be able to face them all at school if he had?

The chirping gave way to ringing and with a wince, Dean answered it.

“Where the  _ hell  _ are you Dean?” Charlie yelled on the other end. “You know you missed your last few check ins, right? I had to call Bobby, but you weren’t even at the party by the time we got there, and I’m so sorry that I had to call Bobby, okay, but you had me so worried, so please don’t be mad! But I think you’re going to be grounded for the rest of your life now and you better be okay – oh God, Dean, say something!”

“Uhhhnnn… I don’t feel so good,” Dean whispered into the phone with a groan. It was taking a lot out of him just to speak up. Leaning one arm down on the ground for leverage, he pushed himself up and gasped at the pain that flared up when he did.  _ Why the hell did his ass _ \- he paled, eyes wide in horror and he dropped his phone, turning to the bushes, heaving.

“Dean? Dean!!!” Charlie’s tinny voice finally made itself known and he crawled back over to the phone to pick it up.

“Charlie… I need help… I don’t know what happened or, or where I am now. But… I think… I think something happened… I think…” Dean couldn’t stop crying now as he thought back to the little bits he could remember of the night.

“Okay, calm down, Dean, tell me what you see? If we can figure out where you are, we can come get you and help you, right?” Charlie said soothingly from the other side of the line. He nodded though she couldn’t see it and tried to get himself under control. He drew in deep, shuddering breaths around his sobs, his hand coming up to cover his mouth, eyes squeezing shut while more tears leaked out from under his eyelids.

“Dean! Please, talk to me, you’re scaring me…” Charlie begged. Dean forced his eyes open again, blearily blinking against the sun. There was a street sign not too far away and he could actually read it. That was good. That’s what Charlie needed to find him.

“I… I can see… uh, the sign says...” Dean trailed off, taking another gulping breath and wiped at his eyes to clear away the tears so the sign would be clearer. “Uh, it says Virgil Street.”

“Virgil street, good, that narrows it down. Okay, cross street? Or a house number – one of the two Dean. You’re doing good,” Charlie coaxed. His phone beeped. Was that another call or was it almost out of juice? Panicking, in case the second was true, he twisted and turned where he sat on the grass to see if he could catch the cross street – but he was at a very bad angle for that – or the house number. That second proved easier.

“Thirty… the… the house I’m in front of is thirty,” Dean whispered. His phone beeped again and the call dropped out, cutting off Charlie. Without that lifeline to cling to, without her calming voice, Dean whimpered and curled up on the ground, one hand placed over his extremely queasy stomach.

Dean was unsure how long he lay like that before someone was shaking him. “Dean, sweetie, you okay? Can you look at me?” It was Sheriff Mills, a friend of Bobby’s. Dean shuddered, but uncurled with a wince and a groan.

“Dean, can you tell me what happened? How you got here?” Her stern face nonetheless held open concern for Dean. His breath hitched and it took him a few tries to answer her.

“I… I don’t remember, Jody. I feel sick and… I… I’m in pain.” The last words came out in a whisper and he instantly clamped his mouth shut against the urge to heave once more. Dean didn’t want to admit to anyone what he thought might have happened. He looked down and away.

“Oh, Dean,” she said sadly. It grated on him to hear it. “C’mon. Let’s get you up. We’re gonna take you down to the hospital, all right? Get you all checked out. I’ll call Bobby on the way, let him know I found ya, and to meet us there.” 

Jody reached down and gently helped him up, but it didn’t stop him from paling and gasping. Every step towards her patrol car was agony, a reminder of what he couldn’t remember. All he could think of, with a lump in his throat, was that he should have listened to Charlie.

The hospital passed in a degrading blur. At some point, he just stopped. He could remember having blood drawn for testing and that he was asked to strip for an examination. That even before the doctor or nurse or whoever it was came back, the simple task of stripping had revealed to him bruises and cuts he hadn’t had the night before.

Dean  _ knew  _ he answered questions from Jody, from the doctors and the nurses, but couldn’t remember them. And when it was all over, he dressed and curled up in the bed facing away from everybody. He couldn’t bear to look at any of them, see their sympathetic looks. There was nothing to be done anyway, whatever ‘evidence’ they found, since he couldn’t remember what had happened, or who had done it, making it all completely worthless.

All in all, he was just as glad he couldn’t  _ actually _ remember anything. It was a small mercy though. He dreaded going back to school. Dreaded looking into the crowds of students and wondering…was it you? Or maybe you?

Dean wasn’t sure he could take it. When Bobby got him back home and turned off the car, Dean grabbed his arm, and choked out, tears once more threatening, “Don’t tell Sam, please?”

“Of course not, idjit,” Bobby said in his gruff voice. The treatment, so like Bobby’s usual manner, set Dean more at ease than all the sympathetic pats and looks and voices he’d gotten in the last few hours or however long it had been. The clock only read 11am. Must be why no one at the house whose lawn he’d crashed on had found him before he woke. “An’ I won’t make you go back to school till you’re ready, but yer gonna have to come up with some sorta excuse, cause y’know your brother’s gonna bug you till you tell him something.”

Dean nodded and cleared his throat. “Thanks, Bobby.”

Moving slowly, Dean got out of the car – his instinct to help Bobby, though still strong, was easier to fight back these days, and he let his uncle get out of the car under his own power. The car was specially modified for wheelchair use and Bobby didn’t want, or need Dean’s help. Which was good, because all Dean wanted right now was to make it up to his room and bury himself under his covers and not move for a few days. Hiding, basically. He was sure neither Sam nor Charlie would let him hide for long, Bobby either, but at that moment he didn’t care.

True to his and Bobby’s expectations, Dean was left alone only a short while before Sam came barging in. The eleven year old bounced onto Dean’s bed and Dean whimpered at the pain the action reawakened.

“Sorry, Dean!” Sam apologized, moving more gently over the bed to his brother. “I heard you weren’t feeling well. Can I help?”

“No, Sam, I just want to sleep okay?” Dean mumbled. He’d roll over and away from his brother but that would take too much effort and he didn’t want to feel more aches and pains that just reminded him of what had happened. God, how he wished he could forget that  _ anything  _ had happened, pretend that the pain was caused by something else –  _ any _ thing else. Maybe a fall or something equally stupid. But of course, Dean Winchester wasn’t that lucky.

His stomach twisted and if he’d had anything left in it, Dean was sure he’d be throwing up. As it was, he scrambled painfully off the bed and darted to the bathroom, heaving again. Sam followed in concern and Dean wished he’d taken a second to slam the bathroom door shut.

When he was done gagging on nothing, Dean slumped against the wall, the energy and will to move leaving him. Sam bit his lip and eyed him worriedly from the doorway. “Dean?” he whispered, “Are you… are you crying? Did something happen at Charlie’s?”

Dean only became aware that he was crying at that moment, hands reaching up to wipe at his face. He pulled his knees up and buried his face, hiding from Sam. “Go away, Sam,” he said brokenly, voice muffled into his jeans.

“But Dean –”

“Go away!” Dean choked on the words but he wasn’t ready to come up with something to tell Sam, wasn’t ready to face his little brother. Didn’t want Sam to see his big brother breaking down.

“Sam, please, Dean needs some space right now,” Bobby’s gruff voice joined Sam’s in the hall and Dean tightened his grip. It felt like it was the only thing holding him together, his fingers yanking on the denim, arms wrapped around his legs.

“But… what’s wrong?” Sam pushed.

“Sam,” Bobby said sternly. There was a rustle and then silence broken only by Dean’s harsh breaths as he tried, tried so goddamn hard, to keep it all in.

“Bobby, I can’t… I can’t talk to him about this… He’s just a kid,” Dean whispered finally.

“So are you, Dean. Don’t go through this alone, boy. I’ll help however I can, get you whatever you need, you got that?” Bobby insisted. Dean nodded his head shakily. “Now, why don’t you go on back to your room, I’ll make you something to eat.”

“Not hungry.”

“I know you’re not, but you need to eat something anyway. Life don’t stop turning, boy, just ‘cause it went all wrong. You’ve seen that before and Lord help you, you’ll see it again.” Bobby turned, the wheels of his chair scraping along the wall in the narrow confines of the hall, and Dean thought about the words. Bobby knew it better than most, he supposed. He’d lost so many things over his life and he’d never given up. Or if he had, Dean never saw it. Could he be as strong as Bobby? He didn’t know if he could, but he wanted to try.

Just… not right this second.

He had the right to be feeling what he was feeling, right? Dean levered himself up off the floor carefully, making his way back to his room. He arrived to find that someone – Sam, probably – had plugged in his phone for him and there were already a million messages waiting for him. Most were from the night previous, missed texts and calls as Charlie tried to get a hold of him. From Bobby when she finally ‘fessed up what Dean had done, where he’d gone.

He deleted every one of those messages sight unseen.

In the end, the house felt too stifling to stay in for very long. Dean had stayed home, ignoring all messages from his friends, even Charlie, the whole weekend, which had then morphed into half the school week before he’d finally had enough of Sam’s puppy dog eyes and Bobby’s considering looks.

Don’t get Dean wrong, he was glad they weren’t pushing, and that they weren’t treating him any different (not that Sam would since Dean still refused to tell him what happened. Kid was 11, he didn’t need to know what happened to Dean). But for some odd reason, he felt an itch, a pull to just get the hell outta there and away from their gazes.

‘Course, he didn’t have anywhere else better to go than school. He dreaded every second of it but figured that with Charlie, with at least one person who he knew he could count on to have his back, maybe he could make it through the day. And hopefully the next day and the one after that till everything just…disappeared.

So against his better judgement, he went back to school, only to discover he was wrong.

Everywhere he looked it seemed like people were pointing at him and whispering and he was on edge by the end of second period when he and Charlie met up to go to their next class – the first of several they shared together.

As they walked along in the hallway between bells, Charlie eyed him oddly. “Dude, what’s going on with you?” she asked as Dean fidgeted with the straps on his bookbag, eyeing everyone around him with equal parts dread, fear, and suspicion. He tried not to show it, but Charlie must have seen something. Or she just knew him too well. In the end, it didn’t really matter how she knew to push. “Does this have anything to do with the party on Friday that you were so eager to go to but won’t even talk about? Something happened Dean, and you gotta talk to somebody!”

“Not here, Charlie,” Dean hissed, looking around in a panic.

“Then when? You’ve been avoiding me all week, Dean!”

Dean looked away with tightened lips. Whatever she saw on his face made her deflate fast and she sighed. “Whatever’s going on, you know I’m here for you, right? And I won’t judge you either. I mean, didn’t I prove that last year when I was the first - and only - person you came out too?”

“That was different!” Dean stopped in his tracks, raking his hands through his hair, suddenly feeling trapped, claustrophobic. Everyone was too close and he was certain now that they were all staring at him. Maybe school hadn’t been such a good idea after all? The aches and pains might have mostly faded, but the bruises and…such…had not. They were a constant, visual reminder every time he caught a glimpse of them, despite how hard he tried to cover them up. Like now, his sleeves slipping past his wrists when he’d raised his hands to his hair. He tried not to wince at the sight, tried not to let Charlie see, but she was – as always – too keen-eyed, too shrewd.

She caught his arm in an instant and pushed his sleeve further up to stare dumbfounded at the bruise on his wrist, sickly looking now, instead of the angry thing it had been Saturday morning.

It didn’t matter that it was healing. His stomach twisted at the sight and he yanked his arm out of her grasp. She looked up in shock, brow furrowing and she spoke quietly, slowly, “Does this have anything to do with the rumors going around?”

“What rumors?” he asked sharply. “And how should I know? I haven’t been here, you have.”

“Did Victor reject you?” she whispered. “Did he… get violent?”

Dean gaped at her. “What?”

“Did you… we, the rumors said…” Charlie suddenly looked uneasy and Dean stared at her desperately.

“Please, Charlie, tell me,” he begged. “No matter how bad, don’t… everyone’s been pointing and talkin’ about me all morning, I can tell. I need to know… Don’t, don’t let me get blindsided, please?”

She opened the mouth but jumped as the bell rang and the two of them looked around to suddenly find themselves in an empty hallway. She looked back at him and closed her mouth for a second. The silence was quickly broken again with a decisive nod and one word. “Okay.”

Grabbing his shirt – he was supremely glad she hadn’t grabbed his arm again – she pulled him along, away from the direction of their classes. “Charlie, what are we…?”

“Today, we’re playing hooky. I think you could use it and as we need to talk, we’ll talk over burgers. My treat,” she insisted.

“Your treat, huh?” Dean sighed. “Yeah, okay, let’s just get rid of all this shit first.” 

They walked towards Dean’s locker, Charlie already traveling light, and what they saw when he got his locker open made him freeze. The inside was littered with notes and pictures shoved through the vents. Dean bent to pick up the ones right on top and paled. The pictures were… they were…  _ Oh fuck _ … he still didn’t know the who, but now he had proof of the what.

“Dean, what the hell?” Charlie had picked up one of the notes and was reading it. “I mean, what the frack is this?” She looked up when Dean didn’t answer. Dean couldn’t tear his gaze away from the photo. “Oh, God, Dean…” Charlie ripped the photo out of his trembling hand and started gathering all the rest, shoving them into her backpack and out of his sight. “C’mon, let’s get the hell out of here.”

Numbly, he followed her out of the school, across the lawn and right out the gates without seeing a single other soul. True to her word, they stopped long enough to grab burgers, but they didn’t linger. Instead, burgers in hand, Dean and Charlie walked back to his Uncle Bobby’s and went up to his room. The walk over helped him to recover from the shock and act, well, not normal, he supposed but better, at least.

He flushed as they entered his room and he realized for the first time how much of a disaster it had become, Charlie looking around with a raised eyebrow. Dean grumbled at her, quickly picking a few things up so that they could get comfortable.

Settling on the bed, backs against the wall, Dean knew he wouldn’t be able to put off the inevitable any longer. He needed to know what they were saying and she… she was his best friend. She deserved to know what had happened. Why they’d found what they’d found in his locker. He shuddered, despite his resolve.

She could go first. He took a big bite of his burger, despite his churning stomach and nudged her. “Rumors?”

She sighed. “Okay, so, I heard it from about a half a dozen people, none of which admitted to being  _ at  _ the party, so why anyone’s taking it as gospel, I’ve got no idea, _ but _ … they’re all saying some variation about how you got super drunk and started making passes at the football team – which, drunk or not, we both know you only got eyes for Victor so I know that at least half of that is a lie, if not all. Then it was implied – but of course, they weren’t telling  _ who –  _ that umm _ …  _ a bunch of folks said you even succeeded with some of the other party goers – not necessarily the football team, and so now they’re calling you a…” Charlie shuddered and put down her burger. Dean dropped his own, remembering the photo he’d seen.

That there had been others.

He felt sick again.

“They’re calling you slurs, dude, okay? You know the ones, and-and a slut and just… being poopy heads! But like I said, I know you, Dean, and so I knew you wouldn’t just get drunk and start sleeping with everyone around you. You might get carried away with the person you liked but… so I was thinking the whole thing was a lie, and they were trying to just make you look bad, maybe? And that maybe that was because you hit on Victor and he didn’t like getting hit on by a guy and that maybe you got beat up and that’s why you hadn’t been to school and then I saw the bruises and I thought, oh my God, that’s totally what happened! But now…I had no idea it was so much worse!” Charlie pushed all the rest out rapid fire and burst into tears.

Dean’s head was spinning as she turned and wrapped him up in her arms and sobbed into his shirt. He sat there frozen, a lump in his throat that he tried to swallow against, his eyes burning. The longer she cried against him, held him tightly, the harder it was to hold back and he cried for the first time since Saturday. He didn’t know how long they were like that, didn’t know who stopped first, but eventually the tears dried up, the sobs petered out, and Dean pulled away from Charlie, away from her comfort. He wiped his eyes and nose on his sleeve.

“I’m not going back. I can’t do it…” Dean gritted out in a barely there voice. “I can’t…I can’t face them all judging me, laughing at me for something they think I wanted when…when…and then there’s…all the…” He swallowed. “I don’t know who…or, or if it was just one person or maybe more, and not knowing who to watch out for – I was only at school a few hours and it was already draining me. To know they’re not only still out there, walking around, but that they’re going out of their way to…to remind me of what happened, tormenting me with it, practically bragging about it! I can’t… I can’t go back. I don’t care what Bobby says, I’m not going back to that school, where anyone could be the – the enemy…” Dean was nearly in tears again with the words, but he was angry too, and he growled out this final declaration, hands coming up to grab his head, ripping at his hair.

Charlie reached up instantly to pull on his hands, pull him back into a hug, run her fingers soothingly through his hair. “Sshh… it’s okay, Dean. I don’t think Bobby will make you go back. I’m sure he’ll understand. Hell,  _ I  _ understand – if something like this had happened to me… I don’t know what I’d do…but I sure as hell wouldn’t go back into the lion’s den. Not if it made me feel so unsafe.”

They stayed quiet for some time before Charlie tentatively spoke again, the hesitation clear in her voice. “Dean, what are you going to do about… all…  _ that _ ?” She nodded her head toward her bag. Towards the pictures and notes she’d picked up out of his locker.

He shuddered in her arms. “Burn it.”

“That… might feel good in a cathartic way and usually I’d agree but, don’t you think you should, y’know, give it all to Jody? It’s  _ evidence, _ Dean. Maybe it could help?”

“I don’t want anyone else to see those – to see me like…  _ that!”  _ Dean flung himself out of her arms and stood, pacing the room in agitation. She let him go and watched with concern.

“I get it, Dean. I totally get it, and I’m sorry I had to suggest it but… I really think you should. Just, maybe think about it? Some of those notes…some of them were fairly threatening, too. I really think you should show someone, and who else better to trust than Jody?”

“It’s not going to do any good!” Dean burst out. “I don’t remember  _ anything,  _ Charlie! I don’t know who it was! How can the police even  _ do  _ anything about it?”

“It’s called forensics, Dean… Give ‘em a chance. You deserve some kind of justice.”

“Deserve and get are two different things, Charlie,” Dean growled out. Thinking of his mother, of his father. Neither he nor Sam had deserved to lose their parents. Bobby was great, but this wasn’t the first time life had knocked Dean on his ass for no reason. He deflated again, falling into the chair at his desk, slumping over and covering his face with his hands.

Charlie meant well. She was trying to be supportive and, honestly, she wasn’t wrong. If he gave the cops the ‘evidence’, maybe some good could come from it. The worst that could happen was that nothing did. But if he  _ didn’t  _ give it to them, then nothing good  _ could  _ come from it. The only thing really holding him back was this feeling of shame. This disgusting, dirty feeling at the idea of having to admit that anything had happened was bad enough, talking about it was worse but having to  _ show  _ it just felt that much more degrading.

A hand touched his arm and Dean’s breath hitched. Swallowing, he moved his hands enough to look at Charlie as she knelt before him. “Just…think about it, okay? This is rough, like, honestly, Harry facing Voldemort rough and I get that. Just, don’t make any rash decisions, okay? Take your time and I’m right here, so’s Bobby I’m sure. And Sam–”

“I ain’t tellin’ him,” Dean said hoarsely.

Charlie nodded. “Yeah, okay, probably a smart idea. But even not knowing what’s wrong, I’m sure he’ll be there for you, too. You guys are pretty close. Always made me wish I had sibs, y’know?”

“You got us,” Dean said softly, not looking her in the eyes.

“Yeah?”

He nodded. “Kinda already think of you as the little sister I never had.”

Dean was swallowed up by Charlie’s arms as she bowled him over on the bed. He stiffened at first until he heard her sniffling into his neck. His arms came up to wrap around her and he held on tightly.

And if his face was once more streaked with tears, at least he was in good company for it.

 


	2. Victor

Bobby took Dean’s declaration that he was   
_  
never   
_  
going back to school with the same, solid presence he’d taken Dean’s initial insistence only the day prior when he said he was ready to return.

That is to say, Bobby didn’t try to talk Dean out of it or give him any false platitudes or even well-meaning ones. Bobby was a doer, not a talker, and it was reason number one that he and Dean got along so well.

So instead, Bobby gave him space, didn’t nag about school, and kept Sam from doing the same. He didn’t even say anything about Dean’s sudden about face on the entire school issue, for which Dean was epically glad. When the school started to call after the delinquent teen, Bobby had a few choice words and then promptly hung up – something Dean was lucky enough to witness more than once. The show of support helped him immensely.

Still, when Jody appeared on the doorstep later the afternoon after one such call, Bobby wasn’t able to get rid of her so easily. Dean was resigned but not exactly surprised when she knocked on his bedroom door. He grunted out a surly, “Yeah?” and she opened the door, but remained outside in the hall, respecting his safe space.

“Dean, we need to talk…”

“Got nothin’ to talk about,  _ Sheriff,”  _ he said.

“Dean…” Her tone was, fuck, was that pity?

Dean gritted his teeth together and growled. Then he jumped off the bed and stalked over to his closet, yanked out his bookbag and shoved it at her. He couldn’t talk to her, tell her why he was refusing to go to school,  and th anks to Charlie, he didn’t have to.

Then he pushed past her, stomped down the stairs and straight out the back door.

Bobby’s place was right next to his garage and was attached to his Salvage Yard. Most people might have hated that. The noise from one, the unsightly mess for the other, but Dean always loved it. He and Sam would often play around the cars and other junk.

Today, though, he headed deeper into the maze to a place he’d long ago staked out as his, turning it into a sanctuary though he never officially thought of it that way. But it was where he’d go whenever he needed to be left alone. When he needed to vent.

And he sure as hell needed to vent in a way he just hadn’t been able to in the house. Unless you counted the crying and Dean didn’t. He’d heard it was supposed to make you feel better to let it out like that, but Dean usually felt more miserable after a cry than he had before. He needed something different.

Knowing from experience that the sound would go unheard with the garage so close and with Dean being so deep in the yard, he picked up an old tire iron and started smashing a lone car that had seen much abuse over the years from Dean’s hand. It had seen him through what he’d seen as betrayal from his dad. It saw him through his inner turmoil last year when he’d realized he might be different than other boys his age.

Thank God for Charlie – she’d kept him sane as he struggled with his epiphany.

He’d yet to act upon it, but it had been the drool worthy Victor that had – unknowingly of course – driven the point home.

He continued to beat the car till the muscles in his arms burned and his breathing grew harsh. As the tire iron clanged against the ground, he sobbed, falling to his ass on the ground before drawing in his knees and wrapping his arms around them. He dropped his head on his arms, muffling the sounds that came from his mouth, though there was no one present to hear them.

He felt dirty and ashamed and lost and Dean had no idea what to do from here, but he’d be setting foot back in that school over his dead body.

When he finally returned to the house, Jody was mercifully gone and Bobby didn’t once mention the visit or what Dean had given the sheriff. Maybe she hadn’t told him. Confidentiality and all that. Whatever the reason, Dean was glad of it.

The next few weeks, Dean felt like he was only going through the motions. Watching his body move on autopilot, answering questions without really hearing them. He slept – barely and badly, flashes and snippets of maybe memories or the photo’s he’d seen creeping into his head, nightmares growing from those little bits like seeds on fertile ground. He woke, he ate, he helped around the house when asked, but he was quiet, talking only when necessary and hiding in either his room or in his sanctuary as much as possible.

Finally, Bobby put a stop to it at breakfast one morning.

“Boy, you can’t keep moving through this house like a ghost. You don’t want to talk about it? Fine, I can respect that, though you might to want to reconsider that decision at some point if you want to be able to move on. You don’t want to go back to school – I can support you there, too… but you need to heal, and you gotta stop shuttin’ out the people who care about you. People – me and Sam included, in case you were wonderin’ – are  _ worried  _ about you. Charlie too. She’s been here every day askin’ for you, y’know.”

Dean looked down guiltily, picking at the table but not saying anything. He didn’t know what to say. Bobby sighed at the lack of response and Dean flinched. Bobby was probably disappointed in him, wanted him to ‘man up’, would probably – Well, Dean wasn’t sure, exactly, but it was probably nothing he wanted to do.

“Today, you’re coming to the shop with me,” Bobby said a few minutes later. The spiraling descent of Dean’s mind came to a screeching halt and he finally looked up at Bobby. He blinked. The dumbfounded look that must have been on his face made Bobby roll his eyes in exasperation before he looked at Dean in such a way that Dean was unsure how the old man had pulled it off. Gentleness and care, exasperation and steel, and a glint of ‘don’t you dare argue with me, boy’. “It’ll feel good to do somethin’, I promise.”

Bobby turned from the table, pushing at the wheels of his chair and Dean’s eyes – usually so accustomed to this that he didn’t even bat an eye – were drawn to the movement.

His uncle might have something, for all that. Trauma was trauma, and Bobby had been dealt a bad hand himself. But the man hadn’t given up. He’d persevered and Dean had always wondered what had given him the strength to keep going after losing nearly everything. If Bobby could do it, then why couldn’t he? At least he could go into the garage like Bobby asked – no,  _ told _ – and give it a shot. Go day by day and… and see where it went.

Dean nodded and finally spoke for the first time that whole morning. Just a simple, “Okay,” that had him jumping as soon as Sam cheered from beside him. Dean had forgotten his brother was still there. God, he really had been out of it, hadn’t he? Immediately, guilt washed through him. He stared at Sam and opened his mouth before closing it again. He didn’t know what to say. Clearing his throat, Dean just nodded at Sam who beamed back before lurching out of his chair and launching himself into Dean.

The impact rocked Dean and his chair back some but he held his ground and wrapped his arms around Sam. Dean couldn’t even remember now the last time he’d hugged his brother or talked to him or even smiled at him.

And suddenly, the guilt lifted.  _ Sammy. _ Dean was determined to follow through on what Uncle Bobby said. He’d go to the garage today. He’d go every damn day, and when he came home, he’d spend some time with Sam. Maybe they could institute a game night and have Charlie come over too, by way of an apology for avoiding her after all she’d tried to do for him.

Having a plan in place, no matter how small it was, made Dean feel better than he had in days  _ – no, weeks _ , he realized. He hurried upstairs to get ready for the garage after Sam packed himself off to the bus stop for school with a grin and a bounce in his step that Dean was suddenly sure he hadn’t seen in nearly as long.  _ No. _ Dean refused to feel guilty. He was gonna work on getting into a better – um, what had Charlie called it? – headspace and he’d make it up to him.

Taking a deep breath, Dean instantly regretted it. His room  _ stank _ . He walked over to the windows and cracked them open. That would have to do till he could come home and properly fix the state of his room that he’d allowed it to get into.  He finished getting ready and even did some quick work on his room before Bobby hollered at him to ‘git his damn ass in the truck’.

Dean was pretty sure if he’d been standing next to him, he’d have heard his uncle tossing an ‘idjit’ in there as well.

“Coming!” he yelled down the stairs.

It wasn’t long before he and Bobby arrived at the garage and Dean was set to work. He’d learned a lot from Bobby over the years and he really enjoyed working at the garage. Dean had seen some true works of art come through this way. He’d also seen some cars that had seen better days.  He loved fixing them all. Soon, he was lost in the work, finding a calm, a zen to it all that he hadn’t been able to achieve since the party.

By the end of the work day, he was extremely exhausted, but his heart was a little lighter.

Day by day, he saw Sam off to school and followed Bobby to the garage,  while his Uncle dodged the school’s ever increasing calls . Nearly every day Dean returned feeling slightly better. It took a few days to clean his room and air it out completely. And when the weekend arrived, Dean set up the first ever ‘Official Game Night’, in which Sam and Charlie enthusiastically participated. Bobby didn’t play – usually – but he definitely approved. Things were… they were better. Not good, but definitely better. Bobby had been right about just  _ doing  _ something.

It didn’t stop the nightmares though.

Dean hated that every time he had one, he’d wake up soaked in sweat and his heart pounding a million miles a minute. And odds were good that he’d yelled something and woken up the rest of the household. He didn’t do it every time but often enough for it to become commonplace. A little bit of dread resided in his chest every time he woke and slowly came to his senses, realized he was safe, and then worried that Sam or Bobby (or both) would be right there any second.

Bobby, he could handle. Sam’s puppy dog eyes and his face full of concern and hurt if Dean refused to talk about what had woken him were nigh impossible to deal with. So he’d rather avoid it if possible. That was normal, right?

He came to the breakfast table particularly wrung out and groggy after one such sleepless night plagued with ill remembered nightmares, and both Bobby and Sam traded glances before looking at Dean – worry in Sam’s eyes, something thoughtful in Bobby’s.

Seeing Sam off to school as was normal, Dean returned to the house to grab a coffee while he waited anxiously and with hunched shoulders for what Bobby would say. He didn’t have to wait long.

“Boy, I think you might wanna reconsider talkin’ to somebody. I know you don’t wanna, an’ the idea of seeing a therapist weirds ya out for some reason, but I got somebody you might want to at least take a chance with. Look, Dean, it ain’t weak to need to talk to someone. It ain’t weak to get help. If it were Sam, an’ he were having nightmares but didn’t want to burden his family with the whys, what would you have him do?”

“I’d get him help…” Dean whispered.

“And would you be thinkin’ any less of him for needin’ that?” Bobby pressed. Dean shook his head. No, of course he wouldn’t. It’d hurt him more to not be able to help Sam, if he couldn’t find some way to let his brother heal, even if Dean couldn’t do it directly. Bobby’s voice softened, catching Dean’s ears and making him think. “So why should you be any different?

Dean shrugged and looked away, then shrugged again. “I dunno. I guess… I just…” He inhaled, his breath shaking and then, with a lump in his throat, he just nodded. He swallowed against the lump. “Okay, Bobby. I’ll um… I’ll meet this guy and um, I’ll give it a shot. But I ain’t promising anything!”

“You don’t have to promise  _ me _ nothin’, Dean. I just want you to try. Do this for yourself, not because I told you to,” Bobby insisted.

Groaning, Dean covered his face. He could feel the heat of his skin turning red. “God, Bobby, I’ll go! Okay? So who is this guy?”

“Pastor Jim.”

“Pastor Jim?! You want me to talk to a pastor about… about…” Dean’s voice choked and strangled and he turned away, his hands going from his face to pulling at his hair. “And  _ Pastor Jim _ of all people…” 

Dean couldn’t believe that this was Bobby’s suggestion. It was hard enough telling anything to strangers, harder still to tell  _ Jody _ and that was her job. But to tell a man who’d been Bobby’s friend since before Dean and Sam had moved here? That visited for dinner at least once every two weeks?

“He’s a licensed therapist and sworn to patient confidentiality two times over. It’s kinda necessary with his job. He ain’t gonna judge you, Dean.  Not for who you like, or for what happened to ya. Think about it.” Bobby started away from the table. “An’ you might want to take the day off. Try an’ get some more rest. Don’t want you workin’ on cars as exhausted as you are. Best case scenario, you don’t do your best work. Worst case scenario, might get yourself or someone else hurt.”

“Fine, I’ll stay home today. And I’ll think about it,” Dean grumbled. Bobby nodded and finished getting ready for work, leaving Dean alone at the table, his steaming mug of coffee sitting untouched before him.

He spent his day thinking or trying to sleep. Sleep didn’t come to him. Not only did he fear his nightmares, but with the turmoil in his mind about talking with Jim, he’d become too anxious to actually relax enough to sleep. What if Bobby was right? What if he did have to talk to be able to let go? Could it really be that simple? And yet, for something supposedly so simple, talking was looking like an insurmountable task. Could he really do it? Open up to someone? Would he have to lay on a couch and talk about what’s-his-name? Freud, or some shit? Or, no, would he have to talk to the Pastor in a walled off room – one of those confessional booths with mesh between their faces?

Actually, that was kind of tempting. But he didn’t think Pastor Jim had confessionals so that was a moot point. Maybe he could… ask Jim if maybe… they could arrange something like that? Dean worried at his bottom lip as he lay on his bed.

It was then that Dean remembered something else Bobby had said.

_ “Not for who you like.” _

Did Bobby know? Was this his way of telling Dean he supported him? Was he mad that Dean hadn’t told him he was bi? Had he told Pastor Jim? Did  _ Dean  _ have to tell the pastor?

Dean wasn’t sure he was ready for that, but it was relieving to think that maybe, just maybe, Bobby was okay with that.

He didn’t come to a decision that night, and he could barely eat at dinner as the war raged on in his head. Bobby didn’t press, letting Dean come to his own decision. After another sleepless night, Dean sat down tiredly at the table. It was Saturday and Sam was absent, having spent the night at a friend’s.

“Okay,” Dean said quietly, his fingers clasped tightly around each other. He cleared his throat nervously and wouldn’t look at Bobby.

“Okay,” Bobby said just as quietly, just as simply. No other words needed. 

Dean nodded and stood, forcing his fingers apart, making for the coffee pot. His eyes drooped and he blinked as he attempted to pour out a cup for himself and for Bobby.

“Um… when should I… when… um…?” Dean stirred sugar into his coffee, his back to Bobby. He grimaced as he struggled for the words. Finally, he managed, “How does this work?”

“However you want, Dean,” Bobby assured him in his gruff voice. It was a comfort to Dean to hear. “It’s not a chore. Jim can come here, or you can go there. Whichever works best. Call him, first. Talk to him about what you want to do… It’s up to the two of you to come up with a plan. I’m just here for support. Whatever you tell him doesn’t come to me or anyone else. You remember that Dean. But also remember, if you  _ want  _ to talk to me, that’s all right too.”

Dean felt tears pricking his eyes and he nodded again, choking out his thanks before disappearing into his room with his coffee.

When he could breathe again, he stared down at his phone. Biting his lip, he called Jim. Somehow, the anonymity of the phone helped with this. He was able to broach the subject of his call with Jim easier than talking to Bobby. Dean didn’t understand it, but he’d take it.

Maybe his idea of the confessional booth, where he couldn’t see Jim’s face as they talked, wasn’t all that bad of one. Just replace the booth with a phone. With that in mind, he asked Jim if that was an option. Jim agreed that for now, perhaps, that would work, but as Dean got more comfortable talking with him, he might want to reconsider it in the future.

That was too far ahead for Dean to think of just now, so he let it go. The Pastor turned out to be available and Dean took a deep breath to mentally prepare himself. It still took some coaxing to get Dean’s first choked words, but Jim was patient. “Uncle Bobby thinks I should talk to you… about… about something that happened to me… I… I…”

“Take your time, Dean,” Jim encouraged, his voice soft and coaxing. 

Before Dean knew it, he was spilling everything. Disjointed words and with teary eyes... He had to stop more than once to regain control, to stop himself from sobbing over the phone. Jim’s near silence made it possible for Dean to say more than he had expected himself capable.

It… it actually felt good to get it all out. But when he was done, and the silence hung around him heavy and suffocating, he waited for Jim’s judgement, for his disgust; Dean’s self-doubt took control. He hunched over on himself as he sat on his bad, the fist of his free hand held to his mouth. The tears were still coming – they’d never stopped – and his breathing had long since grown ragged.

What were the odds Jim hadn’t noticed?

Probably not all that good. It’s what he did, right?

“Dean, breathe with me, okay?” Jim’s voice cut through his panic and Dean nodded, forgetting for a second, that Jim couldn’t see it. “Take a breath… yes, now let it out… Good. Let’s do that again.”

It took Dean a few moments of breathing with Jim before he had calmed enough to wipe at his eyes and his face, for his body to stop trembling where he sat perched against his pillows.

“I don’t know if anyone’s told you yet, but  _ you are not _ to blame for any of this, or even for feeling as you do, all right? And I’ll repeat that as often as needed till you can really take it in, because it may take awhile for you to understand that, deep in your core. But we’ll get you through this Dean, I promise.”

“Y-yeah, okay,” Dean whispered, Jim’s soothing voice washing over him through the phone. He wasn’t sure he believed that, but he did feel a little bit lighter, though much drained.

“Therapy is important to recovery, Dean, but it isn’t an instant cure. To be honest, you may be living with the effects of this for your entire life. What we  _ can _ do is mitigate how it affects you, affects your life and your actions,” Jim said in closing. “There’ll come a time when it won’t be at the forefront of your mind _. But it’ll take time _ . Don’t rush it, and don’t feel bad for feeling like this isn’t happening fast enough. It’s frustrating, but patience and perseverance is key. As well as a good support network, and I know you have one of those.”

It was weird, because Jim was already telling him the same things Jody had, that Charlie and Bobby had, and yet, for some reason, coming from him seemed to make more of a difference. Dean didn’t understand it, didn’t understand how this therapy thing worked, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to argue it.

“How are you feeling now?” Jim asked.

“Better… I don’t… how?” It wasn’t a hundred percent, sure, but it was definitely a step up from where he’d started the conversation.

“Talking can help. And the breathing – if you find yourself starting to panic, try the breathing thing again. I’ll tell you some other methods to help deal while we talk. But remember, baby steps, Dean. This is gonna be slow. And you feel good now, but it’s temporary. What we’re going to do is work on making it  _ not  _ temporary,” Jim reminded him, “and if you need to talk, no matter when, don’t worry about the time. My phone is always on.”

“Thank you,” Dean said, his voice choking up once more as he got off the phone with Jim.

Jim was right. The good feeling was temporary, but Dean did sleep easier that night.

Time went on. H e still had nightmares, but they didn’t happen nightly anymore s ince he started talking with Jim, and they certainly lessened in intensity. Dean was… God, he was starting to actually feel  _ good  _ about himself again. It had taken a few months, but he almost felt normal.

Then Victor showed up at the shop and everything came crashing down around Dean’s head.

Dean hadn’t seen any of the kids from school outside of Charlie since the day they skipped out early and he’d vowed never to go back. Seeing Victor brought everything rushing back. He froze, eyes going wide as Victor stepped into the garage. Dean shook it off and looked around, relieved the football captain was at least alone. No groupies or other team members in tow.

“Um, hi, Victor,” Dean managed, his palms sweating suddenly. “Uh, you need something for your car?”

“No, Dean, actually, I came to talk to you. Is there somewhere we can talk…  _ privately _ ?” Victor started off confident but by the time he got to the end of the question, it became clear he was super nervous. Dean eyed him suspiciously. “Please, Dean, it’s important,” Victor pleaded.

With dread and curiosity both pooling in his stomach, Dean sighed and yanked off his work gloves and stalked away from the car he’d been working on. Victor stood there uncertainly for a moment until Dean looked back to see what was keeping him. Dean shoved his way out the back of the garage and walked a little ways out to the quieter Salvage Yard, the sounds of Victor scrambling to catch up meeting his ears. His stomach twisted but he reminded himself that  _ Victor _ hadn’t been there.  _ Victor  _ had left the party. So, maybe Victor didn’t know.

But why was Victor here now?

Not turning to look at him, Dean shoved his clenched fists into his pockets to hide their trembling. “What do you want?” he grumbled.

“Shit… Dean, I…” He heard Victor take a deep breath. “God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know… my teammates… they’re not the best of people but I never thought they’d do anything like – fuck!” Victor stopped, taking a deep breath. Dean tried not to shake, the progress he’d been making being undone with a few words. “Look, I want to help you. I don’t – what they did wasn’t right, what Mr. Ketch did wasn’t right…”

Dean’s heart stopped.

He whirled to look at Victor, suddenly breathing hard, the other teen backing up a step in its suddenness. Dean stared at him, his hands now free of his pockets, his mouth opening and closing as he tried to process Victor’s words. Dean had assumed it was other classmates at the party. He’d  _ assumed _ it’d been more than one. It wasn’t like he had all that much of a memory of being drugged and then… of… of… but it hadn’t even occurred to him that there’d been an adult involved - someone who should know better, who should be teaching and protecting those younger than him.

He wasn’t sure he wasn’t about to throw up.

“You didn’t know?” Victor said slowly.

“How do you?” Dean finally bit out.

“Because my teammates are stupid asses who are bragging to everyone in school about what happened. Only, they’re putting a different spin on it, said you went after Alastair yourself, asked for it like a… like a…” Victor stopped, disgust plain on his face. “Needless to say, Dean, I don’t know you well, but I think I know you well enough and that… none of that, sounded like you.”

“What, you don’t think I like guys? That it’s wrong to like guys? That if I do, then I brought it on myself?” Dean should probably be addressing any number of other things right now, but Victor’s words had hit at a sore spot.

“What? No! It doesn’t matter if you like girls  _ or  _ guys! Nobody should have done what they did to you! Fuck, Dean, those guys are sick! And Alastair’s the fucking worst! I knew there was no way you’d have thrown yourself at him. If you were like that at all, then you and I might have gone on a date ages ago.” Victor’s face was… was… sad? What the hell was going on? “I mean, that ship has long since sailed now. I just, I want to help fix this any way I can. Have you… have you told anybody?”

Dean deflated and ran one of his shaking hands over his face, letting out a huge breath. “I... Sheriff Jody and Pastor Jim, my uncle and um, Charlie knows a little something, too. No one else ‘cept whoever was at the hospital when they brought me in. But, I mean, there wasn’t much to tell. Not when I don’t remember shit. Nothing to use, nobody to pin it on.”

“Yeah, well, I told you I want to help, and that’s how I can.” Victor held out his phone. “I got it recorded, their confession. The whole damn thing on tape: the roofie, Alastair, the pictures, the… all of it. I told you, Dean, my team mates might be good at football, but they’re a bunch of complete and utter morons. I just, I wanted to talk to you first. Tell me what you want to do.”

Dean was silent for a long moment as he stared at Victor. At Victor's phone. Taking in his words. They swirled in his head. This was what had been missing.  _ Proof _ . But did he want to reopen this can of worms? If Dean did this, if he pursued Alastair and the rest of those asshats, he’d have to put everything out there. He’d have to speak the words in public, outside of his sanctuaries and safe spaces. He wouldn’t be able to escape the knowing looks of everyone around him. The pity and sickening sympathy.

But then again, if he didn’t, who else would this happen to? How many others  _ had  _ it happened to?

Slowly, Dean reached for the phone and Victor let him have it. His thumb hovered over the play button and drew back. He swallowed. “Okay. Yeah. I don’t want to but… I think I gotta, man.” Dean looked up at Victor and Victor nodded with understanding.

“I got a little brother too, Dean. I figured, if I wouldn’t want someone doing this to him, then why should I let fuckers like that go and do it to other people? What makes one person more deserving than another for that sort of protection? I told ya, I got your back. I  _ am  _ gonna need my phone back, so, we gotta figure out what to do with that. What’s your play?” 

Victor Henrikson, senior, football captain and all around popular guy, looked over at Dean and waited. Waited for  _ him to _ decide. Broken, almost two years his junior, the weird kid when he was still in school. It… felt strange. He was used to Sammy looking up to him, to Bobby respecting him, and to Charlie being his equal but… this was so different than that. Victor was giving Dean all the power.

To be honest, it was making it easier for Dean to breathe.

“Jody. Let’s show Jody and um, see what she says.” Dean handed the phone back to Victor with mixed feelings. He should be happy to have the proof he needed, but he just wanted it out of his hands. He wanted this over. Done with. Never wanted to speak about it again. He wasn’t going to get that though, so yeah, he was gonna do what he could to make sure others weren’t put in his place.

To say Jody was ecstatic with such damning proof being dropped into her hands would be the wrong way to put it. Grimly pleased might be better. She took one look at Dean and pulled him in for a hug, whispering, “I’m proud of you. Stay strong, Dean.” Then she and her deputy took Victor aside to question him on what he knew, watch the video, and send it the precinct to be logged in as evidence.

Dean was left sitting at her desk with a pit in his stomach and wringing his hands.

Alastair Ketch.

He’d never even met the man before, but Dean supposed he shouldn’t be surprised that Alastair was a creepy fuck, not if his kid was Arthur Ketch. Arthur had always set Dean’s teeth on edge, made him uneasy. It was something he’d shoved down in his desire to be near Victor, even though Dean had never intended to make an actual move.

A hand landed on his shoulder and Dean jumped, lurching out of his chair, heart beating fast as he spun about to face – Donna. Jody’s deputy. She smiled at him.

“Sorry about that, Dean. Didn’t mean to startle you, sugar. Thought I’d let you know that you don’t have to stay if you don’t want to. Don’t see why ya would since you’re all set for now. We know where to find ya, if we need ya, yeah?”

Dean blinked at her. “Uh, I can go?” She nodded. “Thanks. Then um,” he shuffled a bit, edging around the chipper deputy, “I think I’ll go home. Um… yeah, bye.”

He booked it outta there and set off for home even though Victor had been his ride. He didn’t want to stick around any longer than he had to and the walk would be good for him. Help Dean clear his head. Maybe. Well, it wouldn’t hurt, anyway. Right?

When he finally arrived back at the house, Dean found it empty. No surprise there. School wasn’t over yet, so Sam wouldn’t be home, and that meant Bobby would still be at the garage. Dean debated going back to the garage himself, but decided against it. Instead, he went out back of the house to his side project.

The Impala.

It had been Dad’s. And when Dad had died, the Impala had been wrecked. Bobby had had it towed back to his place and a few years later, had let Dean know that he had it. With Bobby’s help, Dean had begun fixing her up. She was almost done now, just about ready to get back on the road, maybe just a couple more months of work before she was actually roadworthy and as beautiful as Dean remembered her.

He quickly set to work.

That’s where Bobby found him hours later. He didn’t speak a word at first, just watched Dean putter around the old car fondly before clearing his throat and announcing that it was dinner time and ‘idjits who didn’t get inside in time for dinner would be going to bed hungry’.

Dean snorted at the lie, but set about finishing what he was on and cleaning up his tools.

He joined them at the table after a side trip to get his hands clean and sat down. Sam was already chattering away about his day and Dean listened contentedly, letting it be one more thing to distract him from the day’s events and revelations.

Getting ready for bed that night was a chore, dread pitting his stomach. There’d be no more avoiding thinking about Victor or Alastair and the events of today.

The events of  _ that  _ night.

It took Dean a long time of staring up at the ceiling to fall asleep, and it was a sleep plagued with nightmares once more. Dreams of him running – trying to run – but not moving. Urgency and fear crawled through every inch of him, while every limb filled with lead. Each incremental inch laboriously gained doing nothing to get him away from the sheer terror behind him, drawing closer. He could  _ feel  _ it behind him. He could  _ feel  _ it – Alastair – getting closer. Feel the hot breath of Alastair Ketch on his neck, his grip  yanking on Dean’s arms – yanking him backward -

Dean woke up shaking, drenched in sweat.

Breathing hard, he sat up, looking at his phone. Jim had said to call whenever Dean needed. But surely that didn’t mean in the middle of the night – or ass o’clock in the morning, whatever. Did it? Dean stared at the phone a long time before his hands moved of their own volition and hit the speed dial.

“Dean?” the sleepy but concerned voice of Pastor Jim came over the speaker  after – what seemed to Dean – agonizingly long rings, “What’s wrong?”

Dean breathed a sigh of relief that Jim didn’t sound mad. He opened his mouth, but his voice came out as a wordless croak. He closed his eyes, noting Jim telling him to breathe.

Right. Breathe. Dean could do that.

He took a few moments, coming back to himself to hear Jim speaking. “-that’s it Dean, just like that.”

“My n-nightmares are back,” Dean whispered. His fingers clutched at the phone like a lifeline.  _ Which, really, that’s exactly what it is, _ Dean thought and nearly giggled hysterically, for reasons he couldn’t fathom.

“Did something happen?”

“Y-yeah,” Dean stuttered, the sound so quiet he wasn’t sure Jim had heard. “God, it’s so friggin’ stupid. You’re gonna think I’m a goddamn idiot.” 

“I promise you, that’s not true. Just let it out, Dean,” Jim said softly. If he’d noticed the God centered profanity, he was letting it slide. “Why do you _think_ you’re stupid?”

“We’ve got proof,” Dean choked. He raised a shaking hand to his face and covered his mouth briefly, swallowing a few times. “Fuck, we’ve got proof of… of what happened… of  _ who  _ did it and who… who  _ knew  _ and did  _ nothing _ .”

Dean stood and started pacing, despite how weak his legs felt. He couldn’t sit still anymore. Something inside him needed to get out. Rage? Fear? Words? He flailed around with his eyes, trying to settle and focus on something – anything.

His eyes fell on a picture of the people he called family where it sat beside the last family portrait he’d ever had. He swallowed again, past the lump rising in his throat. “It’s… this is good. I can help people. I can make sure no one else ever gets hurt like this again. Not by  _ him _ .”

_ I’m not saying his name. I don’t want to say his name.   _

The pastor didn’t ask where the proof came from or who was involved, and Dean was glad for it. “This does sound like good news. I can see how it would feel conflicting, however.”

“But it shouldn’t be! I should be fucking  _ glad _ we know. Glad we can – can – can take this guy off th-the playing field. I shouldn’t be laying on my bed, scared and shaking, when he can’t hurt me anymore!” Dean’s voice rose and he had to stop, lest he wake his uncle or his brother.

He was glad Bobby slept on the first floor and that Sam tended to sleep through everything. He didn’t want to have to deal with either of them right now. Didn’t want to have to look Sammy in the eye and explain what was going on.

That was something he never wanted to do.

“Dean, it’s all right to be upset about this. What you found out today, it’s tearing open old wounds. That’s going to hurt. And it’s not stupid that it hurts, even if it’s something that will yield a positive result.”

There was a pause as Jim carefully gathered his words. Dean held his breath waiting. “Think of it like lancing a boil, all right? It goes against all of our ingrained self-preservations. You don’t want to do it, but it has to be done or an infection settles in -- it festers and weakens you. But if you go against it, if you lance it, the infection drains away. It might leave a scar, but you’ll come out of it healthier,” Jim explained. “This is the same thing. Only there’s no physical wound. But a wound on your soul is just as harmful to you because they’re harder to heal.”

“That- that makes a lot of sense, I guess,” Dean answered, biting his lip at Jim’s words of validation.

“So trust me, Dean,” Jim continued, “you aren’t stupid for feeling this way. It’s perfectly normal. We’ll work through this like we did before. We’ll do more calls and meet up as often as we used to. It’s okay to ask for help, and it doesn’t make you weak to need it.”

Jim’s words pulled a sob from his throat, but instead of the raw, hurtful thing it was earlier, it felt cleansing.

It wasn’t a cure, he knew it wasn’t, but it was helping .

With a lot of help from Pastor Jim, and the quiet support of Bobby – Dean hadn’t told him anything, yet, but it was clear Bobby knew something was up –,  he settled into his rhythm again .

It was a new one, the rhythm and his peace of mind continuously broken up between the visits from Jody and Donna and trips down to the station where Dean had to talk more about what happened. It was interrupted by the lawyer assigned to build the case against Alastair Ketch.

It was all damning, but right now, Dean was the only victim that had come forward. They needed that, even with a confession. Needed the ‘human element’.

It was so fucking stressful that Dean wasn’t sure how he functioned on a day to day basis.

Bobby offered to lighten his load at the garage, but Dean refused. “Don’t make me stop – it feels good to be doing that work. It helps me get out of my head, forget about it all for a while. I need that, Bobby. I – I need that breather,” Dean practically begged his uncle, but couldn’t feel any shame for it.

“You shouldn’t feel shame,” Jim said over the phone during one of their sessions. “I told you, it’s not weak to ask for help. And that’s what you’re doing. You’re asking your uncle to help you keep your sanity. What you’re going through is hard, there’s no denying that, but you’re doing good.”

Dean slumped in the chair in his room. “Even if I – I went back into the yard and… took a crowbar to another car?” he admitted.

“You have a lot of pent up rage and fear, Dean. Everyone needs a safe outlet. You hurt no one by taking it out on an already wrecked car,” Jim pointed out. “Just be careful you don’t hurt yourself.”

With all of that going on, it was a shock when Dean’s next phone call from Jody was  _ not  _ yet another call down to the station, or a reminder of the next appointment with their lawyer, Cain.

Dean blinked, staring at the phone in disbelief before placing it back to his ear. “You gotta be shitting me!”

“I ain’t shitting you, Dean. We got him. Caught with his pants down, literally. We don’t even need you anymore, at least by name. Your time here wasn’t wasted, and your help was incredibly invaluable. The evidence we were able to get from you is still important, it’s still getting used, you just don’t need to appear personally. It’s over, Dean. You can relax, okay?” Jody assured him.

Dean gulped. His voice trembled. “W-what happened? I mean, I d-don’t need details, okay, but how’d they…?” His voice trailed off in a whisper.

“Seems like not everyone on the football team was so sanguine about Mr. Ketch’s predilections or his actions,” Jody said.

“In other words… someone snitched?” Dean prodded.

“Yup. Someone snitched,” Jody confirmed. “Half the football team wound up arrested on the spot, right along with him.”

“Holy fuck,” Dean whispered. He stumbled back till his back hit the wall and he let himself slide down till he hit the ground. His knees were too much like jelly to hold him up any longer and wasn’t about to try.  Dean’s sense of relief for not having to go into a courtroom was only drowned out by the guilt that Alastair had hurt someone else before they could stop him. Dean didn’t even know the poor guy that Alastair had singled out this time, but nobody deserved what happened.

Nobody.

It took another couple of late night counseling sessions over the phone with Pastor Jim to make it so Dean could even sleep at night, though the guilt still chewed at him. But with Alastair behind bars, Dean actually found that he felt… safer.

And that was a feeling Dean really didn’t want to let go of.

 


	3. Lisa

Time moved on.   


Dean turned sixteen that January, all the while, Alastair’s case was aired on the local news. Though Dean did his level best to avoid it, he still found himself morbidly curious to know what was happening. Torn between both the desire to know and the desire to forget, he threw himself into his work at the garage, into the work on the Impala. And that’s how things stayed for months.

That summer, Bobby broached his schooling at breakfast once more. Dean froze and slowly raised his head to stare at Bobby in disbelief.

“Don’t give me that look, boy. I ain’t askin’ ya to go back to high school, I ain’t that sadistic. But you need to get your degree if you’re gonna become an official member of my garage. I looked into some GED courses for you that start in the fall.” Bobby held up his hand, forestalling Dean’s objection. “Now I know you can just take a test, but you’ll need to make up for two years of schooling you haven’t taken. The year you just took off, and the year you’re about to take off.” Bobby paused and gave a soft chuckle before adding, “Also, the state's kinda up my ass about you not bein’ in school. They’ve taken kids away for less and I’m not even family. Now, they made an exception for you, with all you been through, but that ran out awhile ago. If you do this, then I can stop worrying about them trying to take you and Sam away from me.”

Dean winced at the idea, at the gruff tone of Bobby’s voice hiding a tremble. Sighing, he nodded. “Fine, if it’ll get them to back off and leave us the fuck alone, I’ll take the stupid courses.”

“Thank you, Dean,” Bobby said quietly. Then the matter was dropped until later that afternoon when Bobby handed him the pamphlets for the class.

The Impala was finished by  the end o f spring, and it wasn’t long into the summer when he got her inspected and registered. W hen the GED classes started up in the fall, Dean was perfectly capable of getting to them and back under his own power.

It was surprisingly full when he arrived, with people of all ages and types. It made him feel a little less conspicuous when he stepped inside. Still, without looking to see if there were any other open spots, he headed straight for the back, not wanting to call any attention to himself. Dean wound up next to a dark-haired girl around his own age with a baby carrier on the floor next to her.

She lifted her chin defiantly as he went to sit down and he held up his hands in a “I’ve got no problem with you” gesture. She squinted at him, took in his appearance and his own age and found something – Dean wasn’t sure what – and relaxed, giving him a tentative smile. That was when Dean realized that the only empty seats were around her. He frowned as he finished sitting down, trying to figure out  _ why _ .

A coo came from the baby carrier and her foot came out to rock it a little as she looked furtively around the room with hunched shoulders. Oh, Dean realized. Nobody was sitting by her for probably one of two reasons – or both: judgement for her being a teen with a child and fear that the baby would be disruptive or distracting.

Well, fuck that shit. She was here, despite whatever she was going through to have a baby that young, and still determined to get her education. She should be praised for that, Dean fumed. Who knew what her situation was? Nobody knew his, and it wasn’t any of their business or right to judge either her, or Dean, or anyone else for that matter.

Mind made up, Dean took advantage of the fact that the teacher still hadn’t appeared to smile at her and hold out his hand. “Hey, I’m Dean.”

She looked up at him in surprise, then grinned. “Hi Dean, I’m Lisa.”

They shook hands and Dean leaned over. “So, who’s this cute little guy?”

“That’s Ben.” Lisa beamed at Dean before looking down at her son with pride, her voice holding pure love. Dean couldn’t help but widen his own smile into a grin. Ben was a lucky kid to have a mom who so obviously cared about him so deeply.

Class soon started, but by the time they parted ways, Dean and Lisa had exchanged phone numbers. It felt good to have a friend in class and he was sure that she felt the same.

The work was hard, made harder by others in the class. People refused to pass out assignments when the teacher gave each row a stack to pass back, always claiming they’d run out before they got to Dean and Lisa. When the teacher asked for folks to form groups, everybody avoided Dean and Lisa’s eyes. It wasn’t long before they were meeting up outside of classes for their own extra study groups.

Dean was amazed at how well-behaved Ben was. A little rocking, some cuddling, and he seemed content to coo softly, allowing them to study mostly uninterrupted. Little by little, Lisa relaxed, getting less self-conscious about Ben’s presence. They didn’t even have problems in the library where they met up to study most often.

“Thanks for this, Dean,” Lisa said. Ben rested in the crook of her arm, face turned towards her and his eyes closed. She had a pencil and an open notebook before her, but she was looking to Dean with a grateful expression.

He shrugged. “For what?”

She nodded down at Ben, flashing Dean with a smile and he smiled back. 

Those were the quiet moments. Then, classes became a little harder. If there were class discussions where participation was required, some of their classmates did their best to not let Dean or Lisa talk, jumping over anything the two had to say.

The teacher had something to say about that.

“The next person who cuts someone off or disrespects a fellow student of this classroom will be dropped from this course, their money forfeit. You are  _ all  _ here for the same reason. None of us know the circumstances of  _ why  _ you have come here, but the outcome is the same.” The teacher looked at them all sternly.

“Whatever has happened in your life to keep you from graduating with the rest of your peers, you are here to overcome it. This shows strength and determination and an eye to the future.” The teacher paused and the entire room shifted uncomfortably, no one looking him in the eyes. “None of that precludes compassion for your fellow man. If you can’t be respectful of your  _ new  _ peers, if your attitude keeps them from learning, from bettering themselves as you hope to better  _ yourself _ , then you don’t belong here.”

Dean saw Lisa duck her head, tears in her eyes. Honestly, he felt the same. To know there was someone else on their side, someone of authority… the teacher being an ally was a good thing. If the teacher had felt the same as their other classmates, he could have made their lives much more difficult, made it impossible for them to pass.

This lecture by the teacher didn’t stop the judgmental looks, but the in-class torment ceased. Study groups outside of themselves, though, were still an impossibility, leading Dean and Lisa to continue to meetup to study together.

Dean found himself particularly enamored of Ben, much to Charlie's amusement. She chuckled a little as Dean described the cute things Ben was doing. He fixed her with a glare. “What’s so funny,  Celeste?”

“Hey! That’s  _ not  _ my name!” She crossed her arms over her chest and pouted. Dean echoed her. “Okay, fine, it’s just... you’re so smitten! I rarely get to see you so enthused about something. It’s adorable!”

“I’m not adorable,” he grumped, feeling a bit put out at her description of him.

“You know there’s nothing wrong with that, right?” Charlie asked quietly, eyeing Dean carefully.

“But I’m a guy! Guys are not adorable!” Dean protested feebly.

“So’s Ben,” she pointed out.

“Yeah, okay, but he’s… he’s just a, a kid…” Dean trailed off, knowing this would not win his argument for him. He was right. Charlie honed straight in on it.

“Okay, so at what age is it no longer acceptable to be adorable if you’re a boy?”

“Uhhh… I umm… I don’t have a good answer for that,” Dean answered sheepishly.

“Challenge the norms, Dean. They usually suck anyway.” Charlie grinned. “Now, tell me more about Ben.”

And that was all it took to get Dean back to gushing about the little boy and by extension, his mother. Honestly, the way he’d been going on about them, he really should have expected what happened next.

“Maybe you can invite them over for dinner sometime, Dean. I mean, you’ve got a new friend. Maybe…we can meet them?” Charlie said tentatively. “They sound pretty cool.”

“Uh, yeah, I guess,” Dean replied with some surprise. It hadn’t occurred to him before, somehow. It wasn’t even a bad idea, now that he thought about it. He had no idea why it never crossed his mind before Charlie had said something. No matter, now that the idea was in his head, he was determined to do something, and he resolved to ask Lisa over with Ben at his next opportunity.

That wasn’t far away, of course, since he had classes every other night during the week.

“Hey Lisa, um, do you wanna hang out sometime?” Dean asked during class the next night. She looked up at him in surprise that he caught even as he made faces at Ben, making the little boy giggle. “I was thinking, um… well, Sundays we play games at my house, thought maybe you’d be interested in joining. Grill up some burgers, maybe.”

Dean finally looked up. “It’s lowkey, I promise. Just me, my brother, my uncle, and my friend Charlie. And to be honest, Uncle Bobby’ll probably bail and go watch some TV. Oh, and Ben can come too, of course”

“Oh, sure, Dean.” Lisa’s surprise finally gave way to a smile. “I’d love to, thanks.”

Dean beamed at her and returned to making faces at Ben, loving the giggles he got in return.

He was, for some reason, a nervous wreck for the next couple of days after making his plans with her. Sunday morning he woke up sick to his stomach. He went about the house doing every last-minute thing he could think of to distract himself.

“Well, you’re a bundle of energy,” Bobby commented. Dean just glared as he fumbled and dropped a dish, cursing when he did and it shattered. “Have you considered, boy, that you’re a little nervous because this is the first time you’ve invited a stranger into your ‘safe space’ since you left school?”

Dean froze in the act of picking up a shard of the – thankfully empty - dish. He forced himself to move, continuing to carefully pick up the biggest pieces before heading for the small broom and dustpan to sweep up the smaller ones.

Of course Bobby hadn’t missed that Dean was nervous.

But now that he thought about it, Dean was sure Bobby was right. Except, Lisa and Ben weren’t actually strangers, were they? Did that make a difference? He wasn’t sure. Maybe he should talk to Pastor Jim about it... He glanced at the clock. There wouldn’t be enough time for that today, though, not between his church services and Lisa’s expected arrival time.

His gut still churned but now that he’d identified the reason – with Bobby’s help – he was able to deal with it a little better. Of course, better didn’t mean it went away. He’d still be happier if he could talk with Jim; Dean still couldn’t believe how much having someone like the pastor to talk to could help. Dean wasn’t normally a talking kind of person. He hadn’t talked about Dad either, or about Mom.

Hell, he knew it wasn’t exactly normal that after their mom died in the fire, Dean hadn’t talked…  _ at all _ for almost five months. Dean had even forgotten it had happened till years later when someone else had mentioned this fact – he couldn’t remember who, but who other than Bobby knew their family so well?

So, the fact that he found some measure of comfort and healing in talking to someone else about things he didn’t even want to  _ think  _ about was a little ironic, actually. Wait, was that ironic? He didn’t even know anymore. That damn song confused the hell out of him.

This train of thought kept him so occupied that before Dean was aware, it was time for people – all 2.5 of them anyway – to arrive. Before he knew it, the doorbell rang.

Heart pounding, he answered the door, only to sigh in relief at the sight of Charlie on the other side.

“Your Queen has arrived!” she said imperiously. “You may worship me with food and drink, my handmaiden.”

Dean mock glared at her and pretended to slam the door in her face.

“Oh, c’mon Dean…” she wheedled, “you know I love you!”

“Then why won’t you promote me from handmaiden?” He poked his head back out the door.

“Pffft… I don’t make the rules, Dean. You gotta work your way up through the ranks.” She waved negligently. “Now, let me in, I’m starving.”

Whatever Dean was expecting to happen when Lisa arrived, he wasn’t actually sure, but game night seemed to go well. Even Bobby stuck around after the gruff, older man practically melted at the sight of the baby.

Lisa wrung her hands at first, with many a nervous look back at Ben in Bobby’s arms. She sat on the edge of her seat, ready to spring up at the slightest cry.

Dean chuckled at the love-struck expression on his uncle’s face and leaned over, whispering to Lisa, “Don’t worry, Lis. No one here’s gonna get upset if Ben gets a little noisy. And Uncle Bobby likes to pretend otherwise, but he actually really likes kids. I think it’s why he took us in. It’s okay, you can relax. I promise.”

Seeing Lisa on edge had helped steady Dean even further, somehow. Maybe it was the distraction she provided as he made an effort to put her at her ease. Perhaps it was knowing that he wasn’t the only one a little nervous. Whatever the reason, Dean was glad of it. It was moments like this that reminded him Lisa was only a year and half older than him. She, herself, had expressed her surprise over the difference in their ages more than once. Dean usually brushed it off, but this time, she mentioned it in front of everyone else and he blushed.

“It’s not that big a difference,” he mumbled, “I don’t know why you make such a big deal out of it.”

“Dean, I’m surprised because of our classes. They’re senior classes, meant for someone who missed the last few months, not nearly two years! You’re amazing!” she gushed.

Dean blushed again, getting up to busy himself with getting dinner ready to avoid looking at everyone else. He could already see both Charlie and Sam emphatically nodding out of the corner of his eyes. Bobby was too engrossed in the baby to pay much attention to their conversation, for which Dean was glad.

“See Dean! I told you, you’re pretty smart!” Charlie called out.

“See, you guys are all wrong. Don’t know how many times I gotta tell ya. They didn’t bump me up any grades like they did Sammy, here.  _ He’s _ the smart one,” Dean protested.

“Even if that’s so,” Bobby spoke up, –  _ well, there went the idea that he was too distracted to pipe in _ , Dean groaned – “It doesn’t make you dumb. If someone were smarter than Sam, would you say  _ he  _ was dumb?”

Dean spluttered. “Of course, not!”

“Just take the compliment, jerk,” Sam said gleefully. Lisa smiled, covering her mouth with her hand briefly, but turned back to face them. Dean could still see the twinkle in her eyes.

“So Sam, what year are you?” Lisa pulled the spotlight off Dean and he sighed with relief, turning back to getting the burgers and other things ready.

“Well, like Dean said, I skipped a year, so I’m in 8 th grade. Next year I start high school, which is gonna be so cool! I can’t wait for that!” Sam said exuberantly. Dean winced and almost dropped the burger patty to the floor. This was one of those times he wondered if he should warn Sam about the dangers of high school. But it had really been an adult that had ruined him, the other kids had taken their cue from the adult. No, that was no excuse.

He’d have to find a way to talk to Sam before he started high school. As a younger kid, he might fall as easier prey than Dean had. On the other hand, Dean couldn’t imagine Sam lying and sneaking out of the house to do something he knew Bobby wouldn’t approve of either... Maybe a talk wasn’t necessary?

This kind of circular thinking wouldn’t help. He knew he was afraid of saying anything to Sam out of fear that Sam would connect two and two and come up with Alastair. If Dean warned him about the things that could happen, Sam was too smart  _ not _ to come to the conclusion that was the something that had driven him to drop out.

And Alastair was all over the news for the things he’d done to other teens. The court case was still ongoing, despite the preponderance of evidence from when he’d been caught in the very act. Bile rose in Dean’s throat. He swallowed it back and paused to root around for a soda in the fridge.

He popped the tab open and gulped down the fizzy drink in two swallows.

He didn’t keep abreast of the case, he couldn’t make himself watch, but it was hard to avoid the news when everyone kept talking about it. Apparently, after getting caught, more than one person had stepped forward to accuse Alastair of more wrong doing. Dean didn’t know who, the news hadn’t said, so the people around town didn’t know either, despite the coverage it was getting.

No, he was going to have a good time tonight. He needed to stop thinking about this, to distract himself. He fished another soda out of the fridge and turned back to the others. “Anyone want a drink while I’m in here?”

Sam nodded and Bobby waved him off, pointing at the beer he already had close at hand.

“Oh, sure Dean, whatever you’ve got,” Lisa said.

“Mountain Dew!” Charlie called out.

“I already know that’s your weapon of choice, Charlie,” Dean said with a smirk, his heavy heart starting to lighten. Bobby and Charlie and Pastor Jim, they’d all been right. This was what he needed. To hang out with good people, family and friends. Learn how to be himself again around other people instead of hiding away or hiding behind his job or his school work.

That game night set the stage for the next year and a half for Dean. He finished his classes by Christmas, acing all the tests, with Sam insisting on throwing Dean a party to celebrate this accomplishment. Dean scowled when Bobby allowed it. Dean’s stomach couldn’t help twisting at the idea, even though he knew it was foolish – this was family! - unable to stop his thoughts from returning to the last time he’d been to an actual ‘party’.

Thankfully, it was small. Though Dean still wished it had been smaller. The guest list was, of course, Bobby, Sam, and Charlie with Jody, Donna, Pastor Jim and their families, and a handful of workers from the garage as well.

Lisa and Ben came too, the newest additions to just about any event Dean wanted to attend. She visited the house often, and even occasionally they went out while Bobby happily watched Ben, though usually they found things they could bring Ben along with.

In fact, she and Ben hung out with them so often that Charlie started teasing him about it.

“Sooo… you and Lisa, huh?” She nudged him and he scowled, rubbing at his ribs.

“Jesus, that hurts,” Dean grumbled, avoiding the question. She just stared at him expectantly, her chin in her hands, eyes big and wide and a small smirk on her face. “Me and Lisa nothing, okay? We’re friends.”

“Are you sure about that?”

No, no he wasn’t, actually.

Dean loved Ben. And Lisa, of course. He bit his lip. But was it  _ that  _ kind of love? Wasn’t he too young to really do more than have crushes on people? Like he’d had on Victor? It had obviously been nothing more – or had his experience and Victor’s connection, no matter how unwitting it had been, soured that for him?

Still, Lisa was attractive, smart, and very nice. It was more than pleasant hanging out with her.

But was it the real deal? And was he ready for that?

Dean couldn’t answer that, and now he had two things worrying him: his  _ maybe  _ feelings for Lisa and his dread for the upcoming party.

The closer and closer the party came – thank  _ God  _ it hadn’t taken Bobby, Sam, or Charlie long to   
plan it because Dean was certain he would’ve had a few breakdowns if he’d had to anticipate the party much longer – the antsier he got.

It was Pastor Jim who managed to calm Dean down enough to keep him from hopping into the Impala and taking an impromptu road trip and thereby skipping the party altogether.

He’d shown up at the house in person, though it was more usual for he and Dean to have their talks over the phone, and had caught Dean in the act of pacing his room. Dean’s door had been open but Jim knocked on the frame anyway.

“Uh, hey, Jim.” Dean blinked at the unexpected presence of the pastor. “So what brings you by? You lookin’ for Bobby? I think he’s still down at the shop.”

“No, Dean, I actually thought I’d come and check in on you, see how you were doing with my own two eyes. And to congratulate you as well. You’ve done pretty well, I’d say, over the past year. You should be proud of yourself.”

Dean shrugged and looked away. “Um, thanks,” he said. He didn’t want to be rude but… what was Jim even doing here?

“May I come in?”

“Sure,” Dean flopped down on the edge of his bed, his fingers twitching together as Jim came in and sat down at his desk. “So, what are you really here for?”

Jim smiled. “I’m that transparent, am I?”

Dean shrugged again. “I mean, I guess? You just don’t normally visit unless…”

Jim nodded, his face growing serious. “Bobby told me you’ve been… a little on edge the last few days, ever since Sam broached the idea of throwing a party for you.”

Closing his eyes, Dean blew out a breath of exasperation.  _ Dammit! _ Why’d Bobby tattle on him? “It’s nothing. I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”

“Of course, Dean, but you know you can talk about it, right?”

Dean’s first instinct was to deny that there was anything to talk about, but Jim had been there through everything else. It had helped before, maybe it could still?

“It’s stupid,” Dean muttered.

“I don’t think so,” Jim answered mildly.

“You don’t even know what ‘it’ is!” Dean snorted.

“Oh, I think I do.” Jim paused and leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands together. “Let me outline it for you: You’re upset about the party. Not because you don’t appreciate the sentiment behind it. Not because you’re mad that they’re throwing you one against your wishes – yes, Bobby told me that as well. It’s because the idea of having a party brings up bad memories even though every circumstance here is different. You’re feeling awful because of your memories, and you feel ungrateful to your loved ones because you don’t appreciate the gesture they’re making out of love for you.”

Dean’s eyes widened with every word Jim said, his mouth gaping. Jim continued with barely a pause, “And last of all, you feel stupid, as you say, because intellectually – even if you’re not consciously thinking it - you know all this and you know there’s nothing to worry about from this party and yet… you can’t shut it off.”

There was silence when Jim stopped talking, Dean just staring at the as-ever perceptive pastor. He cleared his throat, finally and croaked out a few words. “So, what do I do about it?”

Jim leaned back. “You’re not going to like it –” he held up a hand to stop Dean’s protest, “- it’s not anything bad or invasive or anything like that. The best way to work through this… is to do it. Now obviously that doesn’t work for everything, or even everyone, but for this I think it can.”

Dean remained stubbornly silent and Jim sighed . “It’s why your uncle let Sam have his way to begin with. Bobby knows better than anyone how trauma can feel. I know that this is different, and not all people can cope in the same ways, but this is something simple and safe you can try. Something to start with. It may seem small, but in some ways it’ll be really hard.”

Jim’s words weren’t new, he’d been saying that all along. Each new step was going to be hard. The whole process was going to be hard. Learning how to be  _ Dean  _ again, without the fear or newly gained instincts - would be hard. Jim had said he’d repeat it over and over again until Dean could feel it in his core. He hadn’t understood then. It had seemed a silly thing to say. Dean  _ knew _ that by now.

But he didn’t  _ know  _ it. 

It was one thing to accept it intellectually, but completely another to internalize it in a way Dean could use. Not just for this but for all the other things Jim had told him over the last year or so. 

Jim continued speaking, unaware of Dean’s little epiphany. Or maybe he wasn’t unaware, Dean couldn’t really tell. “And I want you to remember, that it’s okay that things are hard. Remember that you’ve got support here and everyone who’ll be here are here for  _ you,  _ even if most of them don’t know the full story. It’s okay, they can help you through this. I have faith in you, Dean. We all do.”

A lump formed in his throat and Dean swallowed against it, wiping the back of his hand over his eyes. He wasn’t crying, but they burned and he was afraid the tears would follow. He nodded at Jim, took a shaky breath and simply nodded again with a whispered, “Thanks.”

“Of course, Dean. And if it gets to be too much, just let one of us know, all right?” Jim stood and crossed back over to the door, Dean rising to his feet uncertainly at the same time and following him over.

“Yeah, thanks.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then.” Jim gave him a nod and slipped back out the door, leaving Dean just standing there in the center of his room. His toes curled against the floor, playing with the slightly plush carpet as he considered Jim’s words, how well the man had understood him. Dean supposed that was all part of the job description, and of course, how long had Dean been using Jim as a confidant? He didn’t think anyone knew as much about himself as Jim knew.

He was ever so grateful that Bobby had thought to suggest Jim in the first place.

The idea of the party was still making him anxious, but now that he was able to focus on  _ all  _ the reasons why, it was slightly less panic inducing. It was like the first time he’d invited someone new into his safe space. That had turned out just fine, so why shouldn’t this?

The day of the party was actually quite clear; the weather was mild, despite the season. January was always too cold for the kinds of parties he’d wanted – and never really got – as a child. Still, that didn’t matter much now when he didn’t even want the party to begin with. But he was determined to put Jim’s advice to work and to enjoy the efforts of his family and friends.

Things might not end up being as bad as he feared.

Well, who was he kidding? He knew it would never be  _ that  _ bad. That wasn’t the point. The point was how the incident was still coloring his thoughts and actions, affecting perfectly normal things in his everyday life. He couldn’t live in fear of the things that already happened and he knew he’d worked hard – with Jim’s help – to make it so that wouldn’t happen.

He’d get past this. He had to.

Much like the day Lisa first came over, Dean busied himself doing as many chores as possible despite Bobby and Sam assuring him that  _ they  _ were throwing the party, so  _ they  _ would do the set up. About the tenth time Bobby exasperatedly told Dean to relax, the doorbell rang.

One by one, little by little, people arrived. He answered the door for every single knock and ring, greeting each person as they stepped inside, taking their coats. Dean smiled, laughed, and chatted just like it was any other day, and though he couldn’t pinpoint when, eventually relaxed. The party was really small, and that certainly helped.

 

He saw Jody and Donna talking with Pastor Jim, while Lisa talked with Charlie – he was so glad they got along - Ben bouncing on Lisa’s hip. Sam was talking with Jim’s kids and Jody’s – Diane and Jack, Alex and Claire, respectively. Bobby was in the kitchen and Jesse and Cesar were sitting together on the couch. Awfully close together on the couch, now that Dean thought about it.

Dean made the rounds, making sure everyone knew there were snacks out and checking on if anyone wanted drinks -- it didn’t matter what any of his family said, he just couldn’t stop himself – and made sure to deliver Jesse and Cesar’s last, so he’d have an excuse to stop and talk with them. He sat in the recliner kitty-corner to the couch and nervously looked from one co-worker to the other.

“So, um, thanks for coming guys,” Dean said, hating the small shake in his voice.

“No problem, Dean. Though, it does feel kinda weird, don’t it?” Cesar pointed out.

Jesse nodded. “It’s different, meeting up outside of work. I don’t think we ever have before?”

Dean shook his head, flicking his nail against the tab on his can. What now? He had no problems talking with Jesse or Cesar at work, so why was he struggling now? Cesar threw an arm around Jesse’s shoulders and nodded thoughtfully.

“I think you’re right, babe,” Cesar said simply. Dean blinked at the use of ‘babe’, so casual like it was nothing. Well, not nothing. The word had meaning to the two of them. It had feeling behind it. But casual like... like... like they didn’t care who heard it. He swallowed, thinking about the fact that he’d never come out to his own family, but here they were, both of them, just as out as could be.

“Y-yeah, I don’t… go out much,” Dean said lamely. “Obviously.” He eyed the room briefly with a sigh. The couple looked at each other and back at Dean.

“Dean, you’re a good guy. Sure, you’re young, but you’re also smart, hardworking, and not too shabby on the eyes. We’ve always enjoyed working with you. Don’t take the lack of people around you as a reflection of who you are,” Cesar said. “If you’re not comfortable putting yourself out there, people won’t see you, the  _ real  _ you, and see how worth it is to know you. It doesn’t mean that you’re not worth knowing. Anyway, Jesse and I are proud that you consider us close enough to invite to your party.”

Dean flushed, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Uh, thanks, guys.” He cast about quickly, trying to find anything to change the subject to. “So uh… how long have you guys been together?”

Jesse beamed at Cesar and Cesar looked adoringly at him as he spoke. “We’ve been together for nine years. It’s been a little rough at times… not everyone is as accepting as your uncle is, but we’ve never regretted a moment of it.”

“Huh,” Dean said absently, before looking down at his hands again. They were still picking at the tab of his now empty can, his stomach twisting slightly. He knew he should tell Bobby and Sam, but he could never quite seem to find the right time.  Dean licked his lips and looked up at the couple. “Y’know, I don’t think I ever realized you two were together before. We even work in the same shop. How’d I not know?”

Cesar shrugged. “We don’t make a big deal out of it, especially where customers might see. Don’t wanna cause Bobby any trouble.”

“We shouldn’t have to –” Jesse started.

“I know, babe,” Cesar replied softly. “And we don’t. I just don’t like kissing oil stains.” His lips quirked up at the words and Jesse laughed, their shoulders bumping together.

“Okay, I’ll give you that. Oil tastes terrible,” Jesse conceded. They turned back to Dean. “You don’t have a problem with that, do you?”

“What? No!” Dean blushed.  _ Why did he keep blushing? _ “Definitely not a problem for me. Just tryin’ to figure out how I didn’t notice before. I feel kinda dumb, y’know?” He gave them a sheepish look.

The two of them laughed again, exchanging a set of knowing looks that Dean couldn’t read. He had a brief moment of panic. Did he just out himself to them? He didn’t think so, but at least if he did, it’s not like they’d care, right? He bit his lip again.

“I wouldn’t worry about it, Dean,” Cesar said finally. A natural quiet descended for a moment, maybe two, as the couple sipped at their drinks. Dean just started flexing the can tab back and forth before it popped off, slipped out of his fingers, and slid inside with a metallic rattle, breaking the silence. Cesar spoke again. “So Dean, are you dating anyone?”

“Or thinking of dating anyone?” Jesse clarified slyly.

“Oh, uh, no… I mean...” Dean couldn’t help but look over at Lisa, remembering his previous, confusing thoughts. She was laughing at something Charlie had said and when she caught Dean’s eye, she grinned. His face burned as he smiled back, before ducking his head. Cesar and Jesse laughed, but there was no malice in it and Dean felt relief.

“Well, I guess that answers that question.” Cesar remarked.

Dean blushed – again. Or maybe he’d never stopped.

_ Dammit. _

“I’m still uh…working things out, sorta. I mean, I dunno. We’re both kinda young.” Dean shrugged. “And she’s got a kid and all.” Dean perked up. “Hey, have you met Ben? He’s cute as a button.”

They shook their heads. “Not really a kid person,” Jesse admitted.

Cesar shrugged, neither agreeing or disagreeing. “But you know, you can still date. Dating is how you  _ find out  _ if you’re compatible or want to become serious. Before you find out if you have to deal with stinky socks – “

“Or stinky diapers,” Jesse joked, wrinkling his nose.

“I dunno, babe. Think your socks might rival the diapers,” Cesar joked right back. “Anyway, if it doesn’t work out, so what? Try to part as friends, if you can. If there was enough of something there to try, I’ve always thought that meant it was enough to try and keep hold of. Long as your partner ain’t the jealous type, leastways. In the meantime, you learn, you grow, you keep on going on.”

Dean nodded, giving them a genuine smile. “Thanks guys.”

“Anytime. And hey, we should go out sometime. You, me, Jesse, maybe that redheaded friend of yours and y’know,  _ anyone else _ you want to invite along. We could go out, play some pool maybe,” Cesar offered.

“That sounds awesome.” Dean grinned. “I’ll have to ask L – uh, I’ll have to ask them if they’d be interested.”

“Sounds good to me,” Jesse smiled back.

After that, Dean went back to making the rounds, making sure everyone got the chance to talk to him. The longer the party went on, the more he relaxed. At one point, Jim squeezed his shoulder, and said, “Doing good, Dean. Proud of you.”

And if every drink Dean handled personally came in a can or a bottle that was still unopened, no one who didn’t know anything seemed to think it strange. Anyone who  _ did _ never mentioned anything beyond a nod and a smile and a word of thanks.

Dean could live with the people who didn’t know just thinking it a strange quirk of his.

Still, despite the fun they had, the games he’d convinced the others to play, he was still relieved when it was over.

Even with his most recent thoughts trying to figure out if there was anything between him and Lisa, Dean still felt completely blindsided by it when she leaned over and left a peck on his cheek  as they stood by the door. He stiffened as she drew away and stared at her with wide eyes.

She didn’t seem to notice his  increasingly turbulent thoughts as she picked up Ben and  left the party .

Maybe it had been nothing to her , but Dean couldn’t stop thinking of the kiss. Such a small thing, but an invasion of his space. He’d gotten so comfortable around Lisa and Ben that he hadn’t realized that this bubble he was unconsciously keeping had been completely negated. 

Was this a good thing or a bad thing? Was it an indication that he was returning to normal? What  _ was _ normal? Was this a platonic sort of kiss or something more? Did he want it to be something more? Shouldn’t he  _ want  _ it to be something more?

It wasn’t as if Lisa was unattractive, Dean realized. In fact, she was  _ very  _ attractive. And – to top it all off – she was the first person he’d actually felt any attraction whatsoever since…

Well, unless you counted fictional characters, which he most definitely was not.

Dean said farewell to the last of the guests. Jim and his family had left long before, Jody had needed to drag a reluctant Donna away because they both had a shift to get to  and they had to drop off her kids first,  and Charlie had planned to stay the night.  That left Cesar and Jesse and,  as well as the party had seemed to go, Dean breathed a sigh of relief as he watched the last of his guest leave.

Still, the party hadn’t been all that bad.

A little embarrassing at times, and it ended on a confusing note with Lisa, but not bad.

Guess all he needed to do was get back on the horse, one comfort zone at a time.

The next time he saw Lisa, Dean was flustered, unsure how to act. She wasn’t like most of the girls he’d tried (and given up on) back when he was still  _ in  _ high school. He wasn’t sure if that had anything to do with being in high school, their ages at the time, or that Lisa (and he) had a wealth of experiences under their belts that had caused them to grow up a little faster than some of their peers.

Dean wasn’t arrogant enough to believe that no one else had life happen to them in unexpected ways, usually for the worse. The entire Alastair debacle had proven that he wasn’t alone in that regard, if nothing else. There were days he felt fucking guilty too, for feeling relieved that he wasn’t alone. It wasn’t something he’d have ever wanted to have happen to anyone else, no matter who they were, but since it had…

“Dean, are you okay?” Lisa asked, Ben caught up on her hip and giggling, trying to catch Dean’s attention.

“Uh, yeah, fine. I’m fine,” he assured her hastily, clearing his throat. He reached for Ben. “Let me say hello to this little guy.”

Lisa beamed at Dean. “You’re amazing with him. I still can’t believe that…”

Dean raised his head to look at Lisa. She was biting her lip and shifting her weight. “Believe what?”

“Just… back home, when I got pregnant, nobody cared why. Not that I had any sort of big story behind it, just… everyone – even my friends – they all just stopped talking to me. Kept saying stuff behind my back. And Ben’s father – he’d said he loved me, and then...” She sighed.

“And then he dropped you like a hot potato?” Dean guessed. She nodded.

“He spread rumors after that too, to throw doubt over Ben being his. It got unbearable back home. It’s why I moved here to live with my grandmother. I’m so glad my family supported me. I’ve heard stories…” She shook her head as if to clear it. Dean knew how that felt. “Anyway, here, nobody knew me, but many of them assumed anyway. And no one wants to date a high school dropout with a kid, much less be friends with them. They all act like getting pregnant is a disease you can contract just by looking at me.”

“People are dumb,” Dean noted.

“Yeah,” Lisa chuckled, “I won’t argue with you there. But that’s why… I’m so glad you’re my friend Dean. Thanks for giving me a chance.”

Dean shrugged. He wanted to deny it, say that anyone else would have done the same but… he had firsthand knowledge that they wouldn’t. Just the way some of those other so called adults had treated Lisa in their classes, where all of them were working to better themselves, had been proof enough of that.

Things seemed to progress from there. Small things at first. Lisa shyly holding his hand while they were out. A few more of those chaste kisses on his cheeks that – for some reason – made him blush. It made Dean stop and wonder.

He’d been afraid of intimacy since… 

Well, since  _ then _ , and he hadn’t been all that sure he’d be able to reciprocate without freezing up. But this was so different, so slow and, and… Dean couldn’t seem to put it into words, all these half formed thoughts that circled his head. You would think as often as he returned to them these days, he’d be able to give them form or substance, but still they eluded him.

All he knew was… it felt good just being with Lisa. Curled up together to watch TV while Ben played on the blanket on the floor or napped on their laps. It filled Dean with a warmth he’d never quite experienced before and it was something he wanted desperately to hold on to.

At some point, Dean wasn’t sure when or who, the casual touches morphed into lazy kissing that sent thrills through him after the first panicked feeling quickly – and thankfully – faded.

It was maybe no coincidence that his ability to relax so wholly around Lisa, to actually consider a real relationship with someone for the first time – possibly ever, not just Alastair – might have had something to do with the fact that Alastair was getting less publicity as his case wound down to a single unarguable verdict.

Alastair was going away for a long,  _ long  _ time.

Even some of the football team were getting in trouble, from not only being aware of what Alastair had been doing but complicit themselves. Charlie had come home one day mentioning how the team had been absolutely gutted, almost no one left. The atmosphere at the school – under the public face they had to maintain in light of what had happened - was pissed. Some of the student body griping about how  _ some _ people had ruined their chances at a championship.

Dean was even more glad then that he was never stepping foot in that school ever,  _ ever  _ again.

Because he knew, just  _ knew _ , that despite the fact that his name and face had never once graced the public record of the courtroom, everyone knew. Or at least suspected his part in getting Alastair into trouble. And the idea that even with Alastair and his… his accomplices… gone, that there would still be people tormenting him for what had happened… It was sickening.

So the fact that he wasn’t going back to school – didn’t ever need to again, thank God! – and that Alastair and everyone connected to what had happened were not only going to jail but were no longer going to be the topic of discussion everywhere he went… it definitely had impact on Dean’s state of mind.

And left him a lot more open to Lisa then he had expected.

By some unspoken agreement, they took it slow. Despite teenage hormones, neither of them were in a rush to move forward. Charlie had some ideas about that when Dean took this perplexing fact to her, all the while wondering if there was something wrong with him.

If Alastair had broken him.

“I’m a teenage boy supposedly riddled with hormones, right? I like her, she likes me. We’re both attracted so… why aren’t we, y’know…” his voice dropped to almost a whisper and Charlie had to lean forward to hear the rest of it.

“Boinking?” she supplied with a small smile.

“Yes, boinking. That’s exactly the word I was looking for.” Dean rolled his eyes. “Real mature Bradbury.”

“Hey, I call ‘em like I see ‘em. Speaking of, I really wouldn’t worry about it. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you – either of you. I think it’s more like…” Charlie paused, biting her lips as she looked up at the ceiling. Dean had to resist the urge to look up and see what she was staring at. He knew she wasn’t. He did the same thing sometimes when he was thinking.

“I think it’s high school. Like, there’s a lot of pressure to appear normal. But what’s normal and who’s defining it? Certainly not you or me. But I’m sure you noticed it, right? Everyone seemed so caught up in who was dating who and whether or not you got into some chicks pants. But you’re not  _ in  _ high school anymore. Neither’s Lisa. You don’t have that pressure to conform, that fear that you’re not going to measure up if you don’t date the cheerleaders, or brag about how many bases you’ve gotten.”

“That was always a rotten analogy. I don’t even like baseball,” Dean complained.

“Beside the point, Dean,” Charlie chided.

“I know, I know.” Dean sighed.

“Well?” She poked Dean and he winced away.

“I dunno. I think maybe you’re right,” Dean said slowly. “How the hell are you so smart anyway?”

“It’s a gift,” Charlie replied smugly.

“Always so humble,” Dean chuckled.

“I know.”

It was food for thought, at any rate. Now that she’d put it into his head, he was fairly sure she was exactly right. He’d dated more than one girl more for the sake of appearances than anything else. Especially when he’d been struggling to accept himself as bi, as if dating no one would automatically out him before he was ready.

It was absolutely stupid and yet he’d done it. What other reason could it have been except for some nebulous hive feeling that he  _ had  _ to, to prove himself?

Was that how Lisa felt? Was that how she’d ended up in the situation she’d found herself in, pregnant and the father long gone? How would Dean have felt if he’d gotten some chick pregnant? Especially one he may or may not have really been into?

Well, scared for one. And maybe mad without even knowing  _ why _ he was mad. Maybe pushed into a corner or trapped, sure. But he couldn’t imagine abandoning any child of his, if it had ever come to that, pressures of high school or not.

This line of thought made him seek out Lisa and Ben and spend even more time with them. And if it took months for them to work up to anything more intimate than kissing, then well, it was nobody’s business but theirs.


	4. Charlie

Things with Lisa seemed to be going well. Slow, but good. That was all right; Dean was in no rush and neither was she.

Maybe that should have been a sign.

Dean finally remembered Jesse and Cesar’s invitation to go out and resolved to ask Lisa the next chance he got.

He never got it.

Lisa was leaving.

The abruptness of it was like a punch in the gut and left his head whirling. Everything had become so easy and simple with her and now… Dean was grasping at loose ends.

Turned out, whatever pressures Lisa and her ex had succumbed to while in school, she really did love Ben’s dad. And now that the guy – Mark, apparently – had gotten his head out of his ass, he’d realized that he’d missed her and that he wanted to get to know his son.

After dating Lisa for almost a year – and knowing her even longer than that – it had nonetheless came as bit of a shock when she came to tell him in person that she’d be moving back home.

“I promise you, Dean, I wasn’t leading you on. I do like you, a lot, and you’ve been great with Ben. You’ve been just wonderful to both of us. I just… I’ve got a second chance and I really think we can make it work. I owe it to myself  _ and  _ to Ben to try. You understand, right?” Lisa’s face was guilt ridden and sad, but also hopeful. “I’m just so, so sorry.”

Dean swallowed. “Was I just a replacement for him?”

“Oh god, no! Dean, no! I really do like you. I know we’re young but… I think we could have been very happy together,” Lisa insisted.

“But you love him more,” Dean said, the question falling flatly between them.

“Yeah... I’m sorry, Dean,”  Lisa whispered. Tears filled her eyes and Dean was hard pressed not to follow suit. He hugged her briefly, before turning to Ben and picking him up. Ben was old enough to hug back and Dean’s tears almost fell when he realized he had no idea if he’d ever see either of them again.

Probably not. 

He let her go by putting on a brave face, complete with a smile, and assuring her he was fine, --all so she could leave without a guilty conscience. But where did that leave  _ him?  _ Young, they had been, but he’d been eighteen for almost a month, and she’d turned nineteen the previous fall. Ben was toddling around on his own now, and Dean had been thinking of finding his own place to live, then asking Lisa and Ben to move in with him.

Well, he’d been working up to it, anyway. And now here he was, back at square one. The idea of moving out alone made him shudder. He was reluctant to be by himself, even if -- as an adult – he should be looking to spread his wings and leave the nest.

Still, there was a silver lining to it all, he supposed.  _ I can save more money for Sam’s schooling _ , Dean thought, staring up at the ceiling. His leg bounced on the bed, his hands crossed beneath his head.  _ Sam’s smart enough, he can probably go anywhere he sets his mind to. Some of those places get pretty damn expensive. _ Yeah, okay, Dean was good with that plan.

Now if only he knew what to do with  _ himself _ . 

It had only been a few days and he was finding he had no idea what to do without her and Ben around. He went to work, came home and… and nothing. Sam was busy with schoolwork and Dean was  _ not  _ interrupting that, and he loved Bobby, but there was only so much TV he could watch before he grew antsy.

With a groan, he levered himself up off the bed, grabbed a jacket and ran down the stairs, shoving his feet into his boots. Something brightly colored caught his eye and he paused, only to find that it was one of the toys he’d bought for Ben to play with for when he and Lisa came over. He frowned at it and deliberately turned away, shoving more forcefully than necessary out the door. 

He didn’t want to think about the chance he’d just lost; he was sure going to miss them.

Hopping into the Impala, he headed out for a drive – anywhere, nowhere, he didn’t really care. He drove around the town he knew so well. A two dollar theater, a diner, three fast food chains, several Dunkin Donuts – he didn’t bother counting those, there were too many of them – a couple of mom and pop food places and a few more restaurants. There were about a million stores – okay, maybe not, but it sure felt like it – and a small park. Three graveyards and all the other usual town staples: police station, fire station, town hall, courthouse, churches...

But… there was nothing to do.

_ Unless I feel like upping my mini golf skills, _ Dean thought as he passed the mini golf place. No. definitely not in the mood for that. He and Lisa had been planning to take Ben there a couple of days after she’d left. It wouldn’t be the same if he went by himself.

It wouldn’t be as fun .

He found himself back home but with way too much antsy energy and no idea what to do with it. Why was he at such loose ends? Had Lisa and Ben really taken over so much of his life? Bobby was still out, Sam was most likely still at his study group, and Dean didn’t have any idea what to do with himself.

So he called Charlie.

“Yo, Dean! ‘Sup?”

“I’m bored as hell,” he grumped.

“Okay, is this a call to battle? Should I bring over some movies and games so we can get our geek on?” she asked.

“I don’t – Fine, sure. Let’s do that,” Dean accepted. Maybe if he went through the motions of the things he usually enjoyed, he’d break out of his funk? It was worth a shot anyway.

Before he knew it, Charlie and him were ensconced on the couch with the TV playing. They’d argued good-naturedly over who got to pick and finally settled on some good old Doctor Who. They started with Rose because, why not? By the time they got to the second episode and Rose had walked off to morosely talk to a plant, Dean realized he could totally relate. Well, not in the ‘wrong time frame on a space station’ kind of way, but in a ‘having one's worldview getting drastically altered’ sort of way. In the ‘I’m lost’ way.

“Okay, spill,” Charlie sighed dramatically as she bumped his shoulder and he grumbled.

“Spill what?”

“What’s got you so down, Dean?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t ‘nothing’ me! You’ve been like this since Lisa left. I mean, I knew you liked her, but I didn’t know she meant  _ that  _ much to you…” Charlie said uncertainly, raising an eyebrow and biting her lip.

“It’s… I dunno. It’s Lisa but it’s not Lisa? I don’t understand what’s wrong with me,” Dean sighed. He raked a hand through his hair and didn’t look at Charlie.

“Hmmm…” She tapped at her lip.

After a moment without Charlie expanding on that, he demanded, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing bad, Dean. Just thinking.”

“Why does that fill me with dread?” Dean tried to tease.

“Dude!” Charlie slapped his shoulder. “When have I ever steered you wrong?”

“Uh… well, what about that vegan place we went to-“

“Oh my God! That totally doesn’t count!” Charlie turned red and Dean laughed. She smiled. “There’s the Dean I know and love.”

Then her face got serious again and Dean’s stomach flipped. “Look, I mean, I don’t know about all this relationship stuff but... maybe, Lisa became this pillar in your life and now it’s like someone knocked the support beam right out from under you. Wait, that came out a little garbled…”

Dean nodded slowly. “No, I think I get it. But that doesn’t really help me move past it.” Charlie gasped and started bouncing. Dean eyed her and when she started squealing he inched away. “Uh, Charlie? You having some kind of fit over there?”

“Dude! Dean! We should go out clubbing!”

“Clubbing?” Dean asked dubiously. Now his stomach was  _ really  _ rolling. “In  _ this _ town?  _ Where?” _

She snorted. “Of course not  _ this  _ town! Something just opened up next town over. Brand new. I think it’s a moral imperative that we go and check it out.” She waggled her eyebrows at him.

“I don’t know, Charlie…” Dean said slowly, trying to figure out a way to get out of it. She turned puppy dog eyes on him and his heart sank because he knew – he _ knew  _ – that he was going to cave to her whims.

“Please, Dean? I don’t have anyone else I trust nearly as much as you to go with me. You’re my  _ best friend  _ and you’re the perfect wingman! And I know I’d be safe with you.” She reached out to touch his arm gently. “And you know you’re just as safe with me. I’m just saying, we should try it! We can always leave if it’s too much.”

He nodded, but he knew if she was having fun, he wouldn’t make her leave. Charlie grinned and the happiness on her face made some of his trepidation roll away. Okay, he could do this. It was another baby step right? Another step into making a new comfort zone, in his fight to just be  _ normal _ again.

He could do this.

He couldn’t do this.

He stood just inside the club, his heart pounding. Not in time with the loud beats – hell, what kind of shit music  _ was  _ this? – but in stark, naked terror. Too many people.  _ Way  _ too many people. And all of them too close to each other. How many of them were strangers touching strangers? Dean shivered as Charlie grabbed his hand and dragged him out to the dance floor.

“C’mon, Dean. Just dance with me – c’mon, just look at me! No,  _ me _ … Ignore everybody else! Now…” She let go of his hand and started… well, calling it dancing would be generous. He gaped as she whirled about the floor in total unconcern. He gulped and tried to let himself feel the same abandon as she did. 

He was stiff, trying to copy her movements. It took a while to loosen up, but finally he did.

He wound up having enough fun that it wasn’t as hard for Charlie to convince him to go out again.

Then again.

Soon, the club became a weekly thing. Sometimes even twice – Fridays  _ and  _ Saturdays. But never Sundays, because those were still reserved as family game night.

He’d been right. Just like inviting Lisa over, just like the party Bobby and Sam had thrown, the club grew on him. It wasn’t half as bad as he’d dreaded. He didn’t stiffen up at the inadvertent brush of another’s body against his anymore, and after a few trips out, he even started dancing with some of the other folks attending, though he stuck to girls at first.

He was just as surprised as Charlie when one of those club encounters turned into something more. He had no idea he’d ever be quite so bold as to do  _ anything  _ in a semi public place. But  _ she  _ seemed to know what she was doing, where to go and who to avoid. He let her take the lead, glancing around worriedly, afraid that any second now they’d get caught.

They hadn’t, and Dean had emerged from the encounter with a stupid grin on his face. Well, he couldn’t see the grin, but he knew it was there, and he was positive it was stupid because he sure felt like a giddy dope. Charlie gaped upon his return, then punched his shoulder.

“Holy  _ shit,  _ Dean! You got game!” she shouted over the music.

After that first shy encounter with another girl there at the club, it was like the floodgates opened. Step by step, little by little, Dean became a little more open, a little freer. He still stuck to women, it was safer, after all. But as he grew braver, he caught his eyes straying to broad shoulders and flat chests and further downwards before he’d tear his eyes away.

That wasn’t as safe.

But he both wanted and didn’t at the same time. Yearned and feared the very things he yearned for. For a while, he made it work. Even made enough connections that some of those one-night stands with women briefly became something more and he was able to push the other thoughts out of his mind. But it would inevitably end, and Dean would catch his gaze wandering once more.

Charlie was certainly as surprised by this about face as he was. They returned to the club weekly; Dean still had no desire or will to go alone. Not yet. Maybe ever. He didn’t know.

“Have you talked with Pastor Jim about this?” Charlie asked him a couple weeks in, her eyes barely sliding away from the TV screen as her kart careened around the course, Princess Peach taunting Dean’s Yoshi as Charlie blew past him.

Dean frowned. “No. Why should I?”

“Deaaan,” Charlie said with an exasperated sound, “it’s kinda what he does. And, I mean, hasn’t he been the guy you talk over everything with when you need it?”

“Sure, but I don’t need it,” Dean tried to point out. He slipped on a banana left on the track and cursed.

“Really? You don’t think this is a little out of the ordinary for you?” Charlie asked. “Something maybe worth talking about?”

“What the hell, Charles? You guys are always saying I should break out of my shell, and when I do, you jump down my freakin’ throat!” Dean tossed the controller down and glared.

Charlie sighed and paused the game. “No, of course not, Dean. I just think… it’s a little too much, too fast. Even in high school, when you dated the cheerleaders, you weren’t like this. This doesn’t  _ feel  _ right.”

“And pray tell, how  _ is  _ it supposed to feel, oh grand expert?” Dean snapped. He closed his eyes and ran a hand through his hair. No, he wasn’t being fair to his best friend. She wasn’t exactly wrong. Dean  _ had _ been pushing himself. He wanted to feel normal again, and wasn’t this supposed to be normal?

And it had felt good, too. Better than he’d expected. A little empty, maybe, but it felt  _ good _ . Dean couldn’t deny an urge to chase after the good feeling, no matter how short lived and hollow it was.

What was so wrong with that?

“Look, Dean, I can’t say that I  _ do  _ know how it’s supposed to feel, but I think after all this time, I know  _ you _ . Just like I know you’re mentally beating yourself up for snapping at me just now. I just meant…” Charlie sighed and bit her lip for a moment, thinking. “This is a big change and you aren’t talking about it. Maybe you should? Make sure you’re doing it for all the right reasons?” Charlie implored.

“I just wanna be normal again. I just want to… to… not be scared of my own feelings or of taking the next step. Charlie, what if I meet the one for me and… I’m still broken? What if I lose out on my happily ever after because I’m scared?” Dean asked it softly, looking down at his bare toes.

A hand pressed against his shoulder and he looked up into Charlie's concerned eyes. “Dean, you’re  _ not  _ broken. And I’m pretty sure I’ve told you already, normal is overrated. You find the one who’s right for  _ you.  _ The  _ real  _ you. Not someone you force yourself to be because you think that’s what society expects. I mean, look at me!”

Dean snorted. Charlie was most definitely not the picture of conformity, and it certainly didn’t make him love her any less.

Even if neither of them were the other’s type.

Charlie didn’t press further and Dean picked the controller back up, the game soon resuming. She beat the pants off him and he doubled down on his efforts to best her on the next Cup. It was a point of pride for Dean to never lose on the Rainbow Road, though he wasn’t sure why.

Despite her words, Dean didn’t talk to Jim. He was healing. Why did he need to? This was Dean moving on. In fact… tonight, Dean was determined to find a guy.

As luck would have it, he did. Linus. Not quite so tall as Dean, lanky and a little goofy looking but his body could move so entrancingly when he danced that Dean couldn’t take his eyes off him. It went so positively that soon, it was equal opportunity whether he hit on men or women, and he didn’t always get a name.

It still felt fairly empty though.

It was this that finally prompted Dean to actually talk to Jim. Not Charlie’s words, but the emptiness.

“I don’t understand it!” Dean tore at the hair on his head as he paced back and forth in his room. “I thought… I thought I was moving past it all. Healing. Shouldn’t this  _ mean  _ something? It feels good, at first and then… it just…” Dean made a frustrated noise and halted, shoving his face into his hands and muffling the noise as best he could.

Jim only watched calmly. There was no judgement about Dean’s extracurricular activities, or the fact that some of the partners involved in said activities were decidedly not female – Dean had held nothing back, used to talking plainly and honestly with Jim, often forgetting that he was, in fact, a pastor.

“It does and does not have meaning. It has all the meaning that you allow it to have.”

“What does that even  _ mean _ ?” Dean demanded.

“While what you’re engaging in is, indeed, helping you over certain fears, it’s not allowing you to look further. Dean, you crave companionship, as much as most of the rest of us do, in one shape or another. Some people can be content with that of family or friends, others still need a partner. You already have the first two, so it may be that, unconsciously, you’re looking for someone who can be something more for you,” Jim pointed out.

“Aren’t I a little, y’know, young for that? Shouldn’t I be out playing the field?” Dean asked. He immediately winced. Surely Jim, confident or not, would disapprove of that attitude, being what he was. Dean was therefore surprised by the lack of condemnation in his response.

“You’re ready when you’re ready. Whether it be now, or when you’re thirty. I’ve seen couples married right out of high school that are still together twenty, thirty, even forty years later! I know a man who’s been married six times – twice to the same woman.”

“Seriously?” Dean’s eyes bugged a little as he stared at Jim. Jim nodded.

“I’m not going to tell you if what you’re doing is wrong or right, Dean. It is not my job to pass judgement. But if the act of love with strangers feels meaningless, I would, perhaps, ponder that. It sounds like your thoughts have some weight and they’re trying to make themselves known.” Jim paused. “I know that Charlie knows… and of course, I do as well, but have you told Bobby or Sam about - ?”

“Being bi?” Dean asked, sitting on the edge of his bed with a sigh. “No.”

“Is there something that’s holding you back? You don’t seem to shy away from perfect strangers knowing. Have you considered the fact that perhaps it’s all meaningless because you’re afraid to tell the people you love? So you engage in mostly anonymous sex – as if by doing so, you assure yourself it’s all right to be bi?”

Dean blinked. He thought he could see where Jim was going with this. He hadn’t considered that angle. It… might not even be wrong.

Would that mean he’d stop if he stopped hiding? Did he want it to stop? The hollow feeling in his chest said that yes, he did.

“Dean, if you’re afraid they wouldn’t support you, if you’re afraid that they won’t accept you because of the small matter of who you are at your core, I can assure you that you already know the answer.” Jim looked at Dean expectantly.

“I know, I know. They won’t care who I love,” Dean replied with a sigh. “I know that already, you’re right. But I still don’t understand why it’s so hard to say anything.”

“Because it’s a big change to their worldview, good or not. It certainly was momentous for you when you finally admitted it to yourself, yes?” Jim asked.

Dean nodded. “True. ”

“It felt life changing, did it not?”

Dean nodded.

“Something life changing is often hard to share, especially when you might know people who’ve had similar revelations that may not have gone over half so well as you hope yours will.”

“You mean, I’m letting others experiences hold me back?”

“Their experiences, the opinions of those outside yourself. Dean, you have to be true to how God made you.”

Dean stared at him. After all this time, he still didn’t believe how accepting Jim was of  _ who  _ Dean was. Not when he saw churches and Christians in the news, constantly denouncing people like him as sick, as abominations.

He nearly choked on his next words. “Why… how is it that… that you just accept…” Dean waved a hand at himself. “Why you… I mean, shouldn’t you…” Dean couldn’t continue and Jim stood to stand beside him. When Dean wouldn’t look up, Jim knelt down, putting a hand on his shoulder. He spoke softly.

“It is a bit contradictory, isn’t it,” Jim agreed. “The good book has been translated so many times, interpreted differently – sometimes willfully misinterpreted or mistranslated – that sometimes, the original messages have been lost. Jesus preached love and acceptance and that it is not for us to judge. You’re a good man, Dean.”

Jim stood and his hand dropped away. “There is no good or perfect answer for you Dean, but I choose decent human compassion and if you find love – no matter if it be with a man or a woman – I’ll be happy for you. So will your family.”

“Thanks, Jim.” Dean managed a wan smile. Though the words  _ were  _ a comfort, his stomach still twisted at the idea of telling Uncle Bobby and Sam.

Jim left quietly and Dean laid back on his bed, thinking. How did this work? When was appropriate to bring it up? Should he just broach it at dinner? ‘Please pass the potatoes. By the way, I’m bi. So how was school today Sammy?’ Dean snorted. Or should he make it a big deal? Call everyone in for a family meeting? Should he soften the blow with a pie? Wait, never mind, that’d be for him. Still... not a bad idea, right?

He wavered back and forth all the rest of the afternoon, debating with himself while Sam worked on a school project and Dean made dinner. Bobby snoozed in front of the TV, papers from the garage strewn about him. When dinner was ready, Dean picked at his food enough that even Sam noticed. Bobby had caught his eye once or twice but kept his mouth shut, letting Dean come to him in his own time – as usual, and for which Dean was, as ever, grateful.

“Dean, are you all right?” Sam asked, putting down his fork full of green beans. He looked at Dean in concern and Dean did his best to allay his fears by smiling at him. It was clear it didn’t work as Sam’s look only intensified, his brother leaning closer to him. “Dean?”

“I’m okay, I swear. I just…” 

Now was as good a time as any, right? Rip it off like a Band-Aid. “I wanted to talk to you guys about something and I wasn’t sure how to…” Dean shrugged and looked down at his plate, pushing his mashed potatoes around it, “... how to bring it up, I guess.”

“Oh. My. God. You’re pregnant!” Sam said in mock horror. Bobby snorted and Dean dropped his fork to glare at his brother.

“Seriously?”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Whatever it is, Dean, I’m sure it’s not that bad. You’re probably just making a mountain out of a molehill.”

Dean sighed. He didn’t want to admit Sam was – maybe, probably, even possibly? - right. “Okay, but, mountains and molehills or whatever, it  _ is  _ important. To me, anyway.”

“Is it bad, boy?” Bobby asked gruffly.

“No, I don’t think it is. I mean, I hope not? Just…” Dean took a deep breath and decided on a different tack. “You guys, you umm… you don’t have any problems with Charlie, right?”

“Uhhh…” Sam blinked. “Now I’m confused – I  _ know  _ you didn’t get  _ Charlie  _ pregnant.”

“Jesus, Sam! Nobody’s pregnant!” Dean bit out in exasperation, shuddering at the very idea of him and Charlie – ewww, no.

“Sam, just let him spit it out,” Bobby chided. “And Dean, ya know we both love that little firecracker of yours. She’s probably about the best friend a person could have.”

“Yeah. She’s awesome. I can’t even see having any kind of problem with her,” Sam agreed.

Dean blew out another noisy breath, then breathed in again, his words coming out in nearly a single woosh on the next breath he let out. “How would you feel if I was maybe, kinda like Charlie?”

“Dude, duh, we already know.” Sam rolled his eyes.

Bobby shook his head and covered his face. Dean thought he heard his uncle saying “Idjit” quietly.

“You… do?” Dean blinked in shock. Well, if they already knew, this would be easier than expected and he could just… get away without saying anything. Right? Because what would be the point if they already -

“Yeah, sure. I mean, you guys are the two biggest geeks I know!” Sam grinned. “Not exactly a state secret or anything.”

Bobby’s shoulders shook while Dean just stared at his brother in disbelief. Finally, he managed to get his gaping mouth to move. “Dammit, that’s not what I’m talking about! Christ, I thought you were the observant one around here. I’m bi, Sammy. That’s what I wanted to tell you guys. So, so…. so take it or leave it. That’s who I am.”

“Oh, that? You mean that was a secret?” Sam shrugged, picking up his green beans again. “Cool. Good for you, Dean.”

Dean turned to Bobby, still stunned by Sam’s reaction and utter lack of concern or… or anything. “Bobby?”

“He ain’t wrong, though I wouldn’t say we  _ knew  _ so much as we suspected. Not that we discussed it or nothin’, ain’t any business of ours. If you’re happy, then I don’t care who your dating, boy,” Bobby said. Dean felt a rush of relief flood through him, but Bobby wasn’t done. “S’long as no one gets pregnant…” 

Bobby smirked and Dean groaned, banging his head on the table.

Yup, this was his family all right. Despite the frustration and worry over the last few minutes, Dean could feel a smile tugging at his lips.

He felt… he felt  _ good. _ Lighter than he had in awhile. It had been good to tell them, even if it turned out they already knew, because now he knew where he stood with them. Even though he’d suspected they’d be all right with it, now he  _ knew,  _ and that was a significant weight lifted of his shoulders.

Charlie laughed when he told her how it went. She was curled up at the foot of his bed, tears leaking out of her eyes as he ranted. “And then that little shit just rips the rug right out from under me, telling me he already knew I was a geek like you were. Like, what the hell, Sammy? I thought he was the smart one?”

She tried to sit up and regain her composure, but one look at his face had her doubling over again. “I’m glad you find my torture at the hands of my own loved ones funny,” he said, nudging her with his foot.

“Dude, it’s priceless. I wish I could have seen your face! And your brother’s a genius!”

“What? How do you figure?” Dean demanded.

“I know you, Dean. You were probably talking yourself into a panic, and the worse it got, the less likely you would have gone through with it. Sam pissed you off enough that you just came right out and said it,” Charlie pointed out. “So, genius.”

“Huh. Maybe,” Dean said grudgingly, finally relaxing enough to sit down beside her. “It was still a dick move though.” 

“You wanna go clubbing tonight?” Charlie asked after she’d finally stopped randomly chortling over his coming out story.  _ Note to self, never tell anyone else the details of said story. _

Dean thought about that question. Every week for the last – wait, how long had it been? His eyes widened as he did mental calculations. Eight months. Lisa had been gone for eight months. He was nearing his nineteenth birthday and almost every week since she’d left, he’d been going to the club with Charlie.

And hooking up with someone there almost every time.

Suddenly, it wasn’t so appealing any more.

What had changed? Was it how he’d admitted – not only to himself, but to Jim as well – how empty the encounters had left him? Was it the fact that, maybe for the first time ever, he was feeling accepted for himself – for  _ all  _ of himself? Had the clubbing been a way to hide? Or, no, that didn’t make sense. Maybe it had been… he’d been looking for that acceptance and since he hadn’t given his own family the opportunity to give him that, he’d searched for it elsewhere?

That made as much sense as anything else, he supposed. Dean slowly shook his head. “You know, this might sound crazy, but I’m not really in the mood.”

Charlie gasped and held a hand over her heart. “Did I just hear that right? Did I lose my wingman?”

Dean chuckled. “Never, Charlie. If you need me, I’ll go with you. But maybe not every week. Or maybe we could change it up, go to new places?”

“Sure thing, Dean.”

And as quickly as everything had changed when Lisa left, things changed again. Dean started putting more hours into the garage, started picking up stuff from the book side of things, and his love life was, once more, nearly nonexistent. The idea of sex with strangers had so abruptly lost it’s appeal that he wondered why he’d ever wanted to do it in the first place. The idea of having something with someone the way he’d had with Lisa, however, started to itch at him. But there was no one here in town that he could even think of in that way. Which was pretty fucking ironic seeing as being bi meant he had twice the potential dating pool. Or… well maybe not twice. Not all the men he’d be attracted to would be anything other than straight, but he wasn’t about to do the math.

Then again, as Charlie reminded him, not all the women he’d be interested in would be straight, as evidenced by herself.

That was all right, he tried to tell himself. He was still young. He had plenty of time to find somebody and settle down. In the meantime, he could be there for his brother. Sam was already on the fast track at the high school. He was in his junior year and already looking at options, taking as many advanced placement classes as he could and doing what seemed like a million extra-curriculars. It kept him busy as hell and there seemed to always be some sort of group project or study group underfoot.

Dean thrived on it when there was. He provided brain food and fresh perspectives and even one or two of Sam’s study buddies made it to game night. Like the twins, Max and Alicia. They were pretty damn smart too, and certainly gave both Dean  _ and  _ Charlie a run for their money on those nights. A couple of times, Dean thought he caught Sam sneaking glances at Max… but then he thought he saw those same appreciative glances at Alicia. But he wasn’t going to pry. He would let Sam come to his own conclusions and come out in his own way when he was ready.

He thought back a few years, to a time when Bobby had tried to tell Dean that he’d have his Uncle’s support no matter what. Even as nervous and somewhat fearful as he’d been about saying anything, he couldn’t deny that deep down, it had helped.

He figured, smart as Sam was, that his kid brother already knew that it would be okay if he didn’t like girls – or didn’t  _ just  _ like girls, or whatever – what with Dean and Charlie as prime examples. But he definitely wanted to make sure Sam  _ knew  _ it was okay.

Somehow.

Dean wrestled with that and realized this must have been how Bobby had felt, trying to find the right moment to say something like that so it wouldn’t do the opposite of its intended effect and scare Dean away.

Finally, Dean just up and said something while Sam was poring over yet another stack of college brochures – some local, some decidedly less so. “Dude… you know, whatever you choose, Bobby and me’ll be cool with it, right?”

“Yeah, of course I do, Dean.”

“No, I really mean that, Sam. For  _ anything _ , not just college.” Dean twisted his fingers together under the table.

Sam stilled and looked up, catching Dean’s eye. “I get it, Dean. Promise. I’m… still thinking things through. I’ll let you know when I’ve figured it out.”

Dean nodded. “Yeah, and uh, if you ever wanna talk…” Dean left the offer hanging and Sam nodded in return.

“Don’t worry, Dean, you’ll be the first person I go to. Unless I happen to get a best friend half so awesome as Charlie, then I might just ditch you for them.” Sam grinned and Dean snorted.

Leaning over, Dean ruffled Sam’s shaggy hair. “Yeah, yeah, like you’ll ever find anyone as cool as Charlie. She’s one in a million.”

“Yeah, okay. I can’t argue with that.” Sam nodded. “I wish she really was our sister, you know?”

“Yeah, I do.” Dean chewed his lip thoughtfully. After a few more minutes, once Sam got lost in his brochures again, Dean got up and headed for his laptop. He had an idea…

It took a lot of YouTube tutorials and a little help from Bobby, but a couple of months later, Dean’s idea had become a reality. Bobby got the first successful one, of course (Dean may have thrown away quite a few pieces that were the wrong size, or got shaped a little off, or any other number of things that went so hideously wrong). It was a little rough around the edges, a bit like his uncle, but strong and durable. The leather bracelet had metal fittings and Bobby’s name clumsily etched into the material. Sam’s was next, and Dean had added little symbols he’d looked up on the internet; symbols of protection and one of a book.

Lastly, was Charlie’s. He’d also given her the same protection symbol he’d discovered, and added a rainbow and an IDIC from Star Trek, because it was just so Charlie he had to.

“Dude, this is so cool! What  _ is  _ this?” she asked when he handed it to her. He blushed a little as she put it on. “I mean, obviously it’s a bracelet, but where’d you get this? What’s the occasion?”

“It’s kind of a symbolic thing. I wanted all my family to have one of these. And you know I think of you like my sister, and well, so does Sam, okay? And just… well.” He shrugged. “I made it. I made one for Sam and Bobby, too.”

Charlie looked pointedly at his naked wrist. “What about you?”

Dean shrugged. “I don’t need one.”

“Pffft… dude! Of course you need one. You’re  _ our _ family too,” Charlie said softly.

A throat cleared and the two of them turned to see Bobby and Sam side by side. “Idjit, you mean as much to us as we do to you. Take it. Sam helped make this one.”

Bobby held out a dark leather bracelet, part of it braided. Dean’s heart was full as he took it in his hands. Bobby had added the same protection symbol to it that Dean had added to the rest – even Bobby’s, though he’d had to take it back temporarily to add it on – and had managed to infuse a touch of color to the leather so that the colors of the bi flag were represented on it.

Dean choked up as he clutched the bracelet to his chest before finally putting it on.

With his family around him, Dean was sure he could face anything. What he wasn’t looking forward to was the day Sam left for college because, surely, he’d go to one of the more prestigious schools. One so far away from home that a plane would be required to get there. But that wouldn’t be for another year and some months.

He’d still have Bobby and Charlie. And of course, the others in their small group. And he could always talk to Jim if Sam being gone was too much.

Despite that assurance, it still felt like it would be all too soon before Sam left the nest. Sometimes Dean wondered if he should too, but he’d inevitably come to the conclusion that it would be better to stay. He was comfortable here: he had a job he loved, and he hated to live alone. Who better to live with, then, then people that mattered most to him?

He’d take it.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where I almost gave up. Which is dumb because by this point, I had, like, 80 % of the story written. I had to flesh out the last two chapters that were already started and write this one, then go back and edit.
> 
> thank you, again, to lotrspnfangirl for not letting me.
> 
> *PS - i think this is my favorite Chapter Header :D


	5. Sam

When Sam left for college at the end of August, Dean had felt both nervous as hell, and proud as shit. It took him less than a week to realize that what he actually felt was really fucking lonely and lost. He’d worked his ass off to make sure Sam could get into college without going into debt. That and other…   
_  
things  
_  
… meant that Dean didn’t have much of a social life. With Sam gone, he only had Uncle Bobby and his best friend Charlie – who he loved like a sister. They were all kinds of awesome, don’t get him wrong but…

Dean felt like he’d lost a goddamned limb.

His days were emptier now than he’d expected and he didn’t know what to do with himself.

Listening to Sam on the phone every week catching him up on how classes were going and the friends he was making just made it worse. When everything had hit the fan for Dean a few years back, causing him to dropout of high school and just… nearly give up on life… it was Sam who’d been  _ his _ rock, even if Sam hadn’t known it. Just knowing the kid needed him had meant a lot to Dean, had helped him pick himself up off the ground and move forward. He couldn’t fail Sam. That was his mantra for so long.

Now Dean rattled  around in Bobby’s house. It was big, and it had Bobby, and it really  shouldn’t have felt so empty without Sam in it - but it was and Dean moped. His moping did not go unnoticed. Charlie cornered him at the garage on his day off.

“Dean, what the hell is the matter with you? You’ve been so down in the dumps lately, I wouldn’t be surprised if you found a Balrog.”

“It’s nothin’, Charlie.” Dean ignored her, continuing to work on the car currently in the first garage bay.

“Like hell it’s nothing. Look, why don’t  _ you _ go to college? Get a degree for yourself?” Charlie’s voice was anything but nonchalant, though she tried.

Dean dropped his wrench, the loud clang reverberating through the garage and his skull. “Fuck.” He leaned down to pick it back up and let it clatter to the table before glaring at her. “Now why would I do something stupid like that? I didn’t even finish high school, Charlie. And I’m not smart enough for college.”

“Now you hold on a minute there, Winchester!” Charlie yelled after him as Dean stalked out of the maintenance bay and through the glass doors to the waiting room. Her voice fell away when the door closed behind him. He stood there for a moment, rubbing his temples with his fingers. The start of a headache sparked behind his eyes.

Dropping his hands, Dean knocked on Bobby’s office door and peeked in. Dean snorted at the sight of Bobby, having fallen asleep at his desk again. He knocked louder, and called out, “Hey old man, it ain’t nap time.”

Bobby started and lifted his head, blearily eyeing Dean. “Didn’t I give you the day off?”

Dean shrugged and leaned on the doorframe. “Yeah, well, I had nothing else better to do so…”

Rolling his eyes, Bobby straightened up in his chair. “Idjit. I know for a fact that Charlie wanted to drag you off for something.”

“Yeah, a lecture. And she still gave it, she just did it while I was elbows deep in the guts of that piece of crap Jody brought in,” Dean grumped back.

“Go home, Dean. Get a life now that your brother’s gone. Stop putting yours on hold for everyone else.” Bobby shifted papers, obviously considering the conversation over and done with.

“My life isn’t on hold. I  _ like _ working here,” Dean protested indignantly.

“Actually boy, I’ve got an idea.” Bobby looked up, a twinkle in his eyes. “I’ve been thinking of expanding the business, but I need a few people I can trust to handle the other shop if I pick it up.”

Dean straightened up eagerly. “Yeah? Well, you can always count on me. Where is it?”

“Chittenango,” Bobby stated, hands still as he stared at Dean.

Dean blinked. “Chittenango,” he stated flatly, eyes narrowing. “You conspiring with Charlie?”

“I might be. But truth is, boy, I’ve been eyeing this place out there for about a year now. The owner’s a friend and he’s looking to sell. I get first dibs. It’s already established, but I’ll need a manager and I’d like that to be you. But… there’s some conditions.” Bobby pulled an envelope from the pile and held it out.

“I knew it.” Nonetheless, Dean was too curious not to see what Bobby had in mind and he reached out for the envelope. He didn’t even get a chance to open it.

“Don’t make a decision now, boy. I want you to go home and sleep on it. Talk to Charlie, Sam, whoever you need to, but  _ really _ think about this, Dean. Now git, I’ve got work to do.” Bobby turned away, the wheels of his chair narrowly missing the desk in his cramped office. Dean didn’t know how Bobby managed to maneuver a wheelchair in the miniscule space he had, with books and files stacked on every surface, including the floor. It was a miracle Bobby didn’t get himself trapped by toppled stacks.

Shaking his head, Dean sighed. “Fine, I’ll see you tonight. Oh, and I’ll be back to finish Jody’s POS tomorrow.”

“You better not!” Bobby called after him. “You’re not on the schedule for tomorrow either. Idjit.”

When Dean got home, he dropped the envelope on the table and ignored it long enough to crack open a beer and order a pizza. Dean finally opened it while he was waiting for the delivery. Inside were several papers about furthering his education. Wasn’t it bad enough that Bobby had insisted he get his GED to continue at the shop? Dean grumped around his beer, tossing the envelope on the table a little harder than necessary. Now he’s got to go through even  _ more  _ hoops?

With Charlie and Sam’s help, he’d studied, gone to classes, taken the test, and done way better than he had ever anticipated. Against Dean’s protests, Sam had framed Dean’s GED and hung it on the wall. But this… Bobby wanted him to take college courses.

There was an application to the same college Sam now attended and Dean was sure it was no coincidence Bobby was suddenly interested in this garage in Chittenango, which just so happened to be in the same town as the college. In addition to the application was a list of courses Bobby wanted him to take if he wanted to officially be manager of the new garage. Not full time, of course, but a few classes here and there over time would add up to a business administration degree.

Dean supposed it made sense. They were all business courses, things that could only help someone run a shop on his own. He practically did that already, only going to Bobby when something unfamiliar cropped up. After all, his uncle had nearly thirty years of experience running Singers Auto, though he didn’t hold a degree himself.

But if Dean did this… would Sam be okay with it? Sam finally had his freedom from his big brother! Would he resent it if Dean suddenly popped up in town? Would he feel like Dean was suffocating him?

Really, the best thing to do was just ask him.

So he did.

“But that’s  _ amazing,  _ Dean!” Sam gushed over the phone. Dean pulled the earpiece away and looked at it in surprise. Sam was still squawking on the other end, loud enough to be intelligible.  _ Wonder how his roommate likes that _ , Dean thought idly. “You totally deserve this,” Sam continued unabated.

“Yeah, but Sammy, you’d really be okay with that? You wouldn’t feel like I was harshing your mellow?” Dean could practically see the eye roll with accompanying bitch face that Sam was probably making at Dean’s words. At his  _ choice _ of words.

“Dean, don’t be stupid. I know you’re not gonna like, go all stalker on me, and y’know, if  _ you must know _ , I kinda miss movie night. And game night. And burger night. And…” Dean cut off Sam’s excited words with a laugh.

“Yeah, yeah, I get the picture. Look, this isn’t set in stone yet. Bobby hasn’t bought the place and I haven’t even sent in an application. They might reject me. Hell, I might change my mind. It’s… it’s a lot of responsibility.” Dean fiddled with the hem of his shirt nervously.

“Dean…” Sam drew out the syllables of his name, “don’t pass this up. This could be really good for you.”

“Sam, I just, I gotta think about it. Make sure, y’know?”

"Okay, well, you'll know more at Christmas, right?" Sam asked.

"Probably. And we both know that once Charlie finds out, if she’s not in on it already, she’s going to be pushing it too.” Dean paused and gave a small snort of amusement. “Hell, she’ll probably want to move to the new shop with me, maybe take some web courses or some shit. Handle the social media stuff of the business..."

"That'll be good! I can see her wanting to come with you. Do you think you two will share an apartment?"

"Don't know yet,” Dean replied, allowing himself to picture it for a moment. He could live with Charlie, easily. “Maybe. We could save some money that way, y'know?"

"Could live in the dorms..."

"No way, bitch, I'm too old for that shit. 'sides, even if I take some courses, they'll only be part time. So no room and board. I'll have to find a place."

“Yeah, whatever, jerk. Look, I gotta go. I have to study for a test tomorrow. But this is  _ great _ news!” Sam was still gushing and Dean felt warm and fuzzy feelings pushing in. He was just glad Sammy couldn’t  _ see  _ the stupid grin on his face.

Dean hung up and stared at the papers, thinking about it.

He finished his beer and half the pizza and thought about it some more.

He turned Netflix on to watch Dr. Sexy and thought about it every time he wasn’t getting distracted by the cowboy boots.  _ It was totally the cowboy boots _ , Dean thought almost guiltily, looking around the room to make sure no one saw him. No one did. His spirits sank a little more.

Turning off the light when he crawled into bed, Dean returned to thinking about it.

Okay, maybe they were all right. Maybe Dean  _ should _ do this. It couldn’t hurt, right? What would be the worst that could happen? Failing a few classes wouldn’t be the end of the world... just highly disappointing. 

And what if he  _ didn’t  _ fail?

He’d be closer to Sam, he’d be doing a job he loved, his best friend would be there, too. It was a fresh start, and maybe he needed that. Maybe Dean needed to step away from this town where everyone knew everyone else’s business. Move somewhere where at least half of them didn’t know (or think they knew) some part of Dean’s story and why everything had gone to shit.

Dean shuddered at the thought, at the memories of Alistair, and rolled over on to his side.

He’d be moving away from bad memories and unpleasant reminders. Maybe he could finally move  _ on. _

Dean fell asleep, already knowing that he’d tell Bobby yes in the morning.

Morning came and despite having made his decision, Dean was now a great big ball of anxiety. This would be a big step.  _ If  _ he was accepted,  _ if  _ Bobby bought the shop, he’d be moving away from everything and everyone he’d known his whole life. Dean would be leaving his entire support system behind! Instead of a tow n full of people who he knew cared, most of whom he liked and some of whom he loved right back – Bobby of course, Donna and Jody, Pastor Jim – he’d be moving somewhere where the  _ only _ people he knew were Sam an d Charlie. And Sam would likely be way too busy with school to spend too much of his time with his big brother.

So it’d just be him and Charlie.

Maybe she’d agree to share an apartment?

Against his better judgement – or maybe not, he still couldn’t decide – Dean decided to accept Bobby’s challenge and send in the application. After all, just because he got accepted –  _ if _ he got accepted – didn’t mean he had to go through with it. It would hurt nothing to get the ball rolling, keep his options open.

See what he thought about it come Christmas.

See if Sam was still okay with the idea, after having a taste of freedom and then having to live with his big brother again for nearly a month.

_ Shut up! _ He wasn’t freaking out; he was being pragmatic, taking the idea for a test drive.

Of course, Charlie stopped by while Dean was filling out the application. She took one look at the papers and gasped, throwing her arms around him.

“You won’t regret this, I just know it!” she babbled excitedly.

She was still ecstatic and chatting away, her voice high pitched and words nearly slurring she was talking so fast, as he made dinner. “So, you should  _ totally  _ take some basic web courses in addition to the business shit Bobby wants you to take. And we all know you’ve got the mechanic thing under wraps, but maybe you could do some sort of engineering program? Maybe, like, instead of just  _ fixing _ things, you could  _ design _ them! That would be  _ amaze-balls!”  _

She bounced around the kitchen as he flipped the sizzling meat patties that he usually made on his favorite signature night - Burger Night. Dean needed the comfort of good food to help relax the knot in his shoulders and the uneasy feeling in his gut.

“Calm down, Charlie. Seriously. You’re gonna blow a gasket or something. You are  _ way _ too invested in this.” 

Dean tried to ignore the excited redhead. She danced her way around him to grab plates from the cupboard, humming under her breath.

“Is it bad to be excited for your best friend? I mean, c’mon, this is gonna be  _ good _ for you.” Charlie beamed at Dean. 

Huffing out an exasperated breath, Dean rolled his eyes and slid the batch of burgers out of the pan and onto a plate he’d had ready. Maybe he should get one of those Foreman grills.  _ I wonder how different it would be to use one of those than a real grill _ ?

“Earth to Dean – we eating any time tonight? Cause, I gotta say, I’m starving!” Charlie was salivating in her chair and Dean broke out of his thoughts with a grin.

“Hold your horses, Celeste,” he snarked back.

Charlie narrowed her eyes. “First off… don’t call me Celeste!” She reached for a bun and started to create her burger from the myriad condiments and other things Dean had already laid out on the small kitchen table. Lettuce, cheese, tomato, onion, ketchup and – Dean shuddered -- mayo.

Dean winced as he sat down and quickly followed suit, adding bacon, pickles, and ketchup to his. “Whatever. And?” He made a second burger to sit beside his first. What? He was starving!

“And what?” Charlie didn’t even look at him before taking a huge bite of her burger, closing her eyes and chewing happily. Dean beamed at her, glad he could make his best friend happy.

“You said ‘first off’, implying a ‘secondly’ to go along with it,” he muttered around his burger.

“Ewww, Dean, don’t talk with your mouth full!” Charlie shuddered and looked away as he gave her  an open-mouthed grin.

Dinner passed in a slightly less hectic manner than its prep had, Charlie’s mouth too full to pester Dean further and giving him a chance to breathe.

“Charlie, if college is that important to you that you are  _ this _ excited that someone else is going… why didn’t  _ you _ go?”

“I did,” she said. Dean blinked.

“Like hell you did. You didn’t even leave town at all. There’s not even a community college within an hour of here,” Dean protested.

“Uh… Dean? Online classes.” She rolled her eyes, then shrugged. “I didn’t make a big deal of it because Mom didn’t have any money to send me. I’m not done yet and I’m not even taking a full course load. But I’ve been saving up  _ and _ I can do the same thing you are. A few classes at a time around working.” Charlie beamed at him, as if it wasn’t any sort of revelation.

“Oh,” Dean said quietly, putting his burger down. 

How’d he miss this? Had he been so wrapped up in himself and then Sam leaving for school, that he really didn’t know what was going on in his best friend’s life?

“Hey! Don’t you dare sit there feeling guilty, Dean! You’ve had a lot on your plate, too, and I never brought it up. So there wasn’t any way for you to know. College was the last thing you were thinking about – look how resistant you’ve been to the idea! – except in regard to Sam.”

Charlie stared at him intently, Dean fidgeting in his seat like she was boring holes into his soul. “Sam comes before me, Dean. You’re my handmaiden, he’s your brother. Family comes first.”

“Charlie,” Dean choked, “you  _ are _ family!” He reached forward and tapped her bracelet.

“I know, Dean.” She smiled. “I’m still not mad at you, so you aren’t allowed to be mad at you either.” She struck an imperious pose, one Dean was well used to after all this time. “Your Queen so commands!”

He smiled and the weight lifted, the air lightening between them.

It wasn’t long before the two of them were ensconced on the couch, watching movies and talking quietly. Despite having had a few months to adjust, the house still felt way too weird when only Dean was home. It was big enough that he felt like he was rattling around in it, and was greatly relieved whenever Charlie deigned to spend the night.

Charlie nudged him. “You think Bobby and Jody’ll ever… y’know?”

Dean snorted. “That old coot and the sheriff? God, I don’t wanna even  _ think  _ about that.” Dean shuddered dramatically.

“Awww… don’t you want Bobby to find love?” she teased.

“Sure, but he raised me, Char. It’s like walking in on your parents having sex. These are the sorts of things we’re  _ not _ supposed to know,” he said, trying to be sagely.

“Then don’t think about them having sex,” Charlie said, rolling her eyes in exasperation. “Just be happy for him.” 

“If that’s what they’re aiming for, being together and all, then I’ll be plenty happy for him. For both of them. They’ve only been pining after each other for years.” Dean sighed. “Now can we stop talking about my uncle’s love life and get back to the movie?”

He spent the rest of the night using the movies and Charlie as an excuse not to overthink things. He knew he tended to do that, it was something Jim had been helping him with, and this whole college thing felt too  _ big _ for him. But everyone was so determined that he at least try it… didn’t he owe it to them to do so? And then he had to admit there was a tiny part of him that wanted to do it for himself, too.

But he wasn’t sure he’d ever admit that to anyone.

And of course, there was the thing about Charlie. He looked at her surreptitiously, hoping that her rapt attention to the screen would make her miss all the glances he was sending her way. She seemed happy enough, and she said she wasn’t mad, but he  _ did  _ feel as guilty as she told him not to feel.

She was his best friend and he never once thought to ask why she stuck around in this crappy little town? Why she hadn’t headed straight off to college when he was sure that had been  _ the thing  _ she’d always wanted to do?

Hours later, he tucked Charlie into the couch, sliding her off his arm and standing up carefully so as not to wake her. He guided her head to the pillow, pulling the blanket off the back and covering her with it, before heading upstairs to get ready for bed himself.

With his mind going in circles, Dean didn’t think he’d fall asleep at all. But what felt like only minutes later, Dean woke with a gasp. His legs jerked in the twist of blankets confining them at the suddenness of his waking. He was breathing hard, eyes staring unseeingly at his ceiling. Dean lifted a shaky hand and ran it down his face.

It was just a bad dream, not even anything worth getting worked up about, not like…

He pushed away the thoughts and memories – the worse things his dream could have been about - before they could form and sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. He looked at the clock.

4 AM.

Too fucking early.

Dean hadn’t even been sleeping very long – two hours maybe? – before this rude awakening. He stood and left his room, stumbled down the stairs and walking to the kitchen, a glass of water on his mind as he rubbed his eyes.

“Huh? Dean? Wha’s up?” Charlie’s sleepy voice came out of nowhere and Dean jumped, his back hitting the wall with a loud thud.

“Fuck!” he gasped, a hand coming to rest over his racing heart. “Shit, Charlie! You scared the hell outta me.”

“You okay?” she asked in a yawn, sitting up from the couch.

Dean let his hand drop, his breathing slowly returning to normal. Two scares in one night… He shook his head. “Yeah, yeah, just gettin’ a drink.”

“You sure, Dean?” Charlie looked at him skeptically. “You uh… look...”

“I just forgot you were here, Charlie. I’m good.” Dean cut in, pushing off the wall. He tried not to stomp his way into the kitchen but it was difficult. Despite his words, Dean still felt unsettled. Both by the vague dream and the subsequent scare he got because he really had forgotten Charlie crashed at the house the night before, after a night of burgers and bad movies. 

He pulled down a glass and filled it from the tap. Dean gulped it down and filled it again, turning to lean against the counter.

Dean yelped when he came face to face with Charlie, her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Dean,” Charlie drew out the consonants of his name and he gulped, looking away.

“There’s nothing wrong, Charlie, I promise.”

“I don’t believe you.” She crossed her arms over her chest and waited.

Dean sighed. “You worry too much. I just had an… unsettling dream. Nothing big.”

Her eyes went wide and Dean winced. Suddenly, he was engulfed in Charlie's arms and water sloshed over the top of his glass at the impact. She pulled back and stared at him, concern and a little wariness blanketing her eyes. “It wasn’t about…”

“No!” Dean said sharply. He took a breath and spoke again, this time more calmly. “No… it wasn’t… wasn’t anything like that. It wasn’t even that much of a dream, really.”

“But there was  _ something _ , Dean,” she pressed.

Dean shrugged and chugged the last of his water, wishing briefly it was something stronger, placing the now empty glass carefully in the sink. She stood there all the while, waiting expectantly.

“It really wasn’t anything, Red. I occasionally have this stupid dream where I’m driving Baby and I just can’t get her to stop. No matter how hard I press on the brakes, she’ll still inch forward. Sometimes I just want to stop because, you know, it’s a dream and you’re carried by the whims of the dream. Other times there’s a clear danger I don’t want to reach, like a cliff or something. Either way, she just keeps rolling forward,” Dean sighed, tiredly.

“Oh, Dean.” Charlie hugged him again, this time making him grunt at the surprising strength in her arms.

“See? It’s nothing, just like I said,” he insisted.

“But don’t you see why you had that dream?”

“Uh… no?” At this rate, Dean was certain he’d get a headache. Or whiplash.

“Dean, it couldn’t be more obvious!”

“Really?” He raised an eyebrow at her and she rolled her eyes right back.

“ _ Really. _ I bet whenever you have the dream, something in your life is out of your control. Big, small,” she shrugged, “it probably doesn’t matter as long as you feel strongly about it. Now here, Bobby and I are pushing you to move on with your life, leave everything you know behind practically and just… get out there. You’re probably a little afraid – don’t you scoff at me, Dean Winchester, there’s nothing wrong with being afraid – of how your life will change, that none of it might work out, or its happening a little too fast for you to process.”

Dean blinked. Charlie’s words made a hell of a lot of sense. He’d never thought of the dream in that way before, or tried to figure out what could have caused it. He’d thought it was just a dream. He’d never even told Pastor Jim about it. But…

“But I’m not really opposed to the plan,” Dean managed to get out weakly.

“It’s still a very big change. Anyone in their right mind would be at least a little bit scared, no matter how excited or not excited they think they are.”

Dean nodded slowly, “Okay, I guess I can see that. But I’d like to try and get some shut eye before I have to wake up in three hours.”

“So… no more heart to heart in the kitchen?” Charlie tilted her head at him.

“I’m sayin’ this chick flick is over and I’m going back to bed. Night Charlie and um,” he blushed, “thanks.”

“No problem, handmaiden.” She stepped back with a cheerful, far too awake grin and a salute. 

Feeling a little easier about it all, Dean went back to bed.

  
  


“All right, Bobby,” Dean slumped down in the seat come Monday, packet in hand. Bobby raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms across his chest and waited. “I’ll uh… it couldn’t hurt to give college a try, I guess. But um… are you sure you want me running the shop by myself? What if –”

“Don’t ‘what if’ me, boy. You can do the work, easy. You already do. What do ya think I’ve been doin’ these last few years, Dean? I’ve been showin’ you the ropes, gettin’ you the experience you’re going to need to run your own place.”

“You’ve been planning this for  _ years? _ ” Dean leaned forward in his surprise, searching his uncle's face. “How the hell have you managed that? I mean… not everything, right? The shop in Chittenango and all? There was no way to know where Sammy would decide to go.”

“Boy, Sam’s been set on goin’ to a college not too far away from home for a while now, and you an’ I both know it. I put feelers out at several different places locally, just in case. But when Rufus first approached me two years ago, I knew it was perfect. Thank God he didn’t mind hanging on for an extra coupla years for me to train ya up.”

Dean was stunned. He stared at Bobby and tried not to gape like a fish. “Holy fuck, Bobby, I… I don’t know what to say…”

“You already said what I wanted to hear, Dean. You said yes.” The almost perpetual surly facade on Bobby’s face gave way to a proud grin. Dean still couldn’t believe it.

“What if I mess up?” Dean shifted uneasily in his chair.

“You gotta have more faith in yourself, ya idjit.” Bobby glowered at Dean, the grin dropping. “I’m serious about this, Dean. You have a lot of potential. I just want to help you reach it. You enjoy the work you do here, don’t ya boy?”

Dean nodded quickly. “Of course I do!”

“Then this is just the next step. I’m gonna be kickin’ around for a while yet, and you deserve this chance. Plus, you know I’m leaving this place to you when I go – “

“Bobby, don’t talk like that!” Dean tried to interrupt. The thought of Bobby being gone made his breakfast curdle, but Bobby bowled right over him.

“- which will take about a million years if I have anything say about it, and you better be ready when I do. And I’m older, part of the old school. People these days expect more from younger folks. Business will flow a lot smoother in the long run if they can see a degree on the wall. You don’t have to get it all at once either. You got time, Dean. Plenty of it. I just don’t wanna see you continue to push your own interests, your own future away, in favor of Sam’s”

“But Sam’s my brother, he’s my respon–” Dean didn’t get much further before he was interrupted, again.

“I know you think so, son, but it shouldn’t be yours alone. And most definitely not at your expense. Sam’s growin’ up. Someday, he’ll be on his own, and so are you. You need to find your place in the world before he goes.”

Dean let out a breath and nodded reluctantly. “Okay.” He nodded again, more confident when he added, “So I’ll put those in the mail today.”

Bobby grunted. “Good. Now that’s settled, I want you to arrange a trip down to Chittenango. Rufus wants to test you before he takes you on. For some reason, dang ol’ ornery coot don’t wanna take my word fer anything,” Bobby grumbled. “Plan on being there at least a week, maybe longer.”

“But what about –”

Bobby held up a hand. “I can handle the shop by myself, boy. Been doin’ it just fine for years, think I can handle a few weeks.”

Chastised, Dean ducked his head and grinned. “Okay, Bobby, I got it. I’ll go call Rufus.”

The call didn’t last long, and Dean got off the phone with a bemused smile. Rufus seemed to be as much of a character as Bobby was. This oughta be interesting. But at least he’d managed to arrange it so that his trip coincided  with dropping Sam back off at college after Christmas break.

Crap, that wasn’t all that long off, actually. He needed to start packing because he was going to be too busy to do it the rest of the week. He didn’t want Sam getting suspicious if he packed a bag during the break. Dean wasn’t about to tell his brother what was going on; kid was already excited about the idea that Dean might apply, he wasn’t sure how Sam would react if he told his brother he’d already done so. Or that he had a job lined up out here.

Sam might explode.

Christmas break was way too short, and despite his plans for after, Dean wasn’t looking forward to dropping Sam back off at the college. Having Sam home for the two-week holiday vacation had pretty much cemented his decision to take Bobby up on his offer, and he was glad he’d already sent in his application. He wavered about not telling Sam that his mind was pretty much made up, but in the end, he stuck to his decision. Dean was enjoying stringing the kid along. He hadn’t had nearly enough time to tease him with Sam being away at college for a solid three months.

So, instead, Dean milked his time with Sam for all that it was worth. He even let Sam drive the Impala for part of the trip back to Chittenango.

“Damn, Dean, you really  _ did _ miss me.”

Dean rolled his eyes at his brother and sat back to try and enjoy the drive. Sam didn’t do too bad though, and Dean was proud of him. Sam tossed him his keys, and after they said their goodbyes, Dean caught a glimpse of one of Sam’s friends. Sam bee-lined for a gorgeous, dark haired boy after the brothers had said their farewells and Dean had to stop himself staring and get into the car.

He had things to do.

An hour later, after checking into his motel, Dean arrived at Rufus’s garage, simply called Turner’s, and met with the man himself.

“Bobby spoke highly of you,” Rufus grumped with arms crossed over his chest when he came out of his office to meet Dean, “but I’ll be taking my own measure of you.”

“Sounds about right,” Dean agreed, refraining from smiling. Bobby had warned him about Rufus, how this was likely to play out.

“Got a car out back, picked special just for you. Want you to go over her thoroughly and report back – full on assessment, Dean.” Rufus lead him behind the garage and to an old  m uscle car a  1965 Mustang Fastback. He pointed and said, “Take all the time you need.”

He left Dean alone with the old car. Dean walked around her and whistled. “Oh, sweetheart, someone busted you up real good. Let’s see how badly you’ve been treated.”

Dean spent hours with her, looking in every nook and cranny. A throat cleared and he turned to see Rufus behind him. “You’re taking an awfully long time, boy.”

“Yeah, well, someone really did a number on her. God, she’s beautiful, Rufus. Where’d you get her?”

Rufus ignored the question and his eyebrows climbed. “Beautiful? Are you daft? We lookin’ at the same car?”

“Well, sure, she’s beat to hell and back but she could run again if the owner had the inclination and the money to do it.”

“So, is that your official recommendation?”

Dean nodded. “To the average Joe coming in off the street, I’d tell them it could be done but it’d be expensive and probably not worth it. But to a collector, or even just an enthusiast, totally worth it. Hell, I’d be tempted to pick it up myself so I could work on it in my spare time.”

“Well then, Dean, better get cracking. I already got an investor lined up, willing to spend the cash.”

“Really? Who?” Dean asked.

“Me. And I’m a tough customer, so you take time and do it right.” Rufus’s brows drew down as he glared at Dean.

Rufus turned and left, leaving Dean standing bemusedly by the car, shaking his head. So that’s how it was going to be, huh? He wondered how long Rufus thought he’d be sticking around for this test. A couple of days of work wouldn’t be enough to cut it.

Still, he could get a fairly good start at it.

Dean rolled up his sleeves and got to work.


	6. Dean

The second time Dean laid eyes on Sam’s gorgeous, dark haired friend, was also the first time he actually got to meet him. 

Castiel was quiet and reserved, and something told Dean this was his normal state. His expressions were small, hard-won. But holy fuck… those eyes. His eyes were staggering. So damn blue, so expressive.

Dean shook Castiel’s hand and had to repress a shiver when the guy spoke. No one his age should have such a gravelly, sinfully low voice.

Even his voice was reserved as he spoke quietly, but Dean easily saw the mixture of curiosity and adorable confusion in his eyes as Castiel made his acquaintance. Could see a measure of fear he attempted to hide as he glanced at his watch. Then the sheer staggering relief at his brother Gabriel’s arrival, though Castiel pretended to be annoyed -- the love Castiel had for his brother was obvious to anyone who had eyes.

Dean couldn’t hear what Sam said to Castiel but whatever his parting words were, they seemed to affect Castiel greatly. An amazing combination of emotions flashed through those blue eyes so fast, so mixed, that Dean was unable to identify them all.

Hope. Relief. Gratitude. Something else so indefinable but tantalizing, like Dean should  _ know _ what it was.

They said their goodbyes and Dean could no longer think about the enigma that was Castiel. Instead, he and Sam hopped into the Impala and Dean got Baby started. Though Sam didn’t know it, they had one stop before they actually left town. 

Dean's destination was a mere two blocks away. Easy walking distance. Shouldn’t be too bad, even in the winter, Dean figured. Sam glanced over in surprise when Dean pulled the car unto the unkempt driveway. The ‘For Sale’ sign waved a little in the wind as Dean shut off the engine. The brothers looked out the windshield and stared at the house in silence for a few seconds before Dean spoke.

“So… what do you think? Could use some new shutters, a new fence and a fresh coat of paint... but it looks like it’s in decent condition and would be large enough for what we’re thinking.” Dean had gotten his acceptance letter just after Sam’s spring break and had finally told his brother what he’d done. Sam had been – if possible – more ecstatic then Dean and Charlie put together. He’d started babbling excitedly of all the things Dean would need to do to prepare for school, and that’s when Sam had come up with the idea of sharing a house. Not just them, but for a few of his friends as well.

Dean had found himself intrigued by the idea, as well as relieved, especially after Sam had explained why he wanted to do it.

Sam snorted and rolled his eyes. “Shouldn’t we see inside first before we declare it’s a winner?” Despite his words, a grin pulled at the corners of his mouth.

“Too right.” Another car pulled in behind them and Dean shouldered open the heavy door. “You ready for a grand tour?”

Sam’s mouth dropped. He twisted to look behind them and watched the woman in a pantsuit step out of the car with a clipboard and folder in her hands. “Right now?”

Dean nodded, grinning.

“Huh,” was all Sam said but the eager way he climbed out of the Impala was good enough to show his excitement to Dean. They slammed their doors shut at the same time just before the woman reached them.

Sticking her hand out, first to Dean then to Sam, she began, “Hi, I’m Sarah Blake. You must be the Winchesters. You ready to start?”

The tour was quick despite the modest size of the house. Their footsteps echoed as they stepped from empty room to empty room. Dean fell in love with the kitchen and mentally claimed the downstairs bedroom as soon as he saw it. Three bedrooms on the second floor and an actual livable space in the attic had both Dean and Sam’s minds reeling with possibilities. 

The basement was a welcome surprise as well. Dean could easily envision making it the main room. A dedicated space for parties, for games, for movie marathons, and for studying all without disturbing the rest of the occupants of the house if they got a little loud.

And let’s face it… kids their age, even college nerds like Sam, would get a little loud from time to time.

The realtor left and Dean sat in the Impala dazed with the folder in his lap. Sam was looking at him with those damn puppy dog eyes the kid had learned early on to use against him.

“Is this happening? Holy shit, Dean… are we doing this?” Sam nearly bounced in his seat. 

Dean looked at the folder and back at Sam clearing his throat. “Yeah uh… I think so. I just… I gotta talk to Bobby… see how this is gonna work itself out but… Yeah.” A goofy grin lit up his face even as he blinked. Was he actually, seriously, going to buy this house? He looked at his brother again and realized that yes. He was.

Of course, as soon as they got back, Dean asked Bobby to take a look at the contract – the proposed sale price, loan options, and contract conditions, along with photos he’d taken of the condition of the house – all to ask Bobby his opinion. That was when Bobby sprang the surprise.

Dean looked at the papers in his hand, the joint account in his and Sam’s name, and the sheer number of zeros it contained. His hands shook and the papers rustled. “Bobby, what is… what is this?” Dean couldn’t get his words above a whisper, his head wrapped around what he was seeing. Beside him, Sam just gaped.

“A coupla things, actually. Settlement for yer dad’s life insurance policy. Yer mom’s too, what was left of it. Also, the money yer dad got when he sold the house. John started the account when you were kids, and then when I became yer guardians, it fell to me. And after a while, interest adds up. Been keepin’ it safe for ya boys.” Bobby's gruff voice was gentle as he spoke and Dean looked up at the older man. “So, this is a good deal, an’ with that there nest egg, ya won’t need a loan to buy the house. In fact, you’ll be better able to negotiate a cheaper price if you pay cash, up front.”

“That’s… this is… it’s too much, Bobby!” Dean’s voice cracked.

“I ain’t givin’ ya anythin’, ya idjit. It’s already yers. Yers an’ Sam’s.” Bobby cleared his throat and turned away, giving Dean and Sam a moment to compose themselves and – at least for Dean – give time for them to comprehend what they’d just been given.

It was Sam who spoke first, slowly. “Bobby, if we had this then… why are you using your money to send me to college?”

Dean brought his head up sharply to stare at his uncle. Sam was right. They were using up Uncle Bobby’s money for no good reason! Not when they had this. Buying the house would still leave them plenty to put Sam through college with minimal loans, and spread out as they’d be, Dean’s classes wouldn’t be a hardship on his salary. So why was Bobby doing this for them?

“Yeah, Bobby, what the hell?” Dean bit out more harshly than he meant and he sighed, “Not that we’re not grateful, for everything, for just… for so much that you’ve done for us. But it’s… why would you waste your own savings like this?”

Bobby turned back around. “I knew ya idjits would say somethin’ like that.” He shook his head, leveling them with a serious stare. “Boys, Karen an’ me, we never had the chance to have our own children. Always thought we’d have time, y’know? Set up a college fund two weeks after we got married an’ we each put money in ev’ry month. After she’d gone, I kept it up. It was foolish. Wasn’t ever gonna have kids now, but I couldn’t stop. Felt like if I did, I was abandoning our dream,  _ her  _ dream. An’ then you boys came to me, an’ I thought Karen’s dream could still come true.  _ Our  _ dream was still alive an’ well, s’long as ya boys stayed with me. Y’know I think of ya both as my own sons, right? An’ I’d be doin’ this for them if I had ‘em, so why should either of ya be any different?”

A lump formed in Dean’s throat and he nodded shakily. “Thanks Bobby,” he managed to croak out, Sam nodding along vigorously.

Suddenly the kid jumped up, long, gangly legs knocking into Dean’s as he did. “I gotta start planning!” Dean watched him race out of the room with a bemused smile.

Bobby looked on, confused. “Where the hell is he goin’?”

Dean snickered and shuffled some papers around, Bobby turning and leveling his “out with it, princess,” look at him. “Didn’t you wonder why we picked out such a big house for just the three of us?”

Bobby looked back down at the laptop that held a spread of photos Dean and Sam had taken on their tour. “Well, gotta admit, I was scratchin’ my head on that one.”

“Sam’s plan, Bobby, is to create kind of like a safe house. Apparently, the situation with a couple of his friends back at college inspired him. So we’ll be making the offer to a select few of the kids, including the two he’s particularly worried about. Dorms close over the holidays, as you know, and during the summers if you don’t take classes, of course. Our house won’t,” Dean explained, Bobby nodding approvingly.

“Ya sure that was yer brother’s idea and not yers?” he asked shrewdly.

“Honestly, it  _ was _ Sam’s, but I really like the sound of it,” Dean clarified. He pulled out one of the papers and his phone. “Now, if you think this is a good deal, I’ll see what I need to do to finalize it. We only have a few months to get this closed out and settled if we want to be ready by the next semester.”

Things, thankfully, managed to move faster than Dean had anticipated, thanks to the option of paying in full. And Bobby had been right – the real estate company had been all too willing to knock off a few thousand or so from the grand total. Especially when Dean pointed out that some parts of the house made it a fixer upper.

Charlie was just as eager as Sam about the whole thing, taking the photos the brothers had taken and using her graphics program to render base layouts of the house so they could plan the rooming situation and discuss all sorts of options. Dean just shook his head with amusement and left them to it with one admonishment – that the downstairs bedroom was his.

The two of them waved him off and he left with a chuckle, feeling real good about all of it all of a sudden. Not just the optimistic hope he’d had before, but  _ really _ looking forward to it. He wasn’t at all sure what had changed, but he knew something had.

Dean wound up having to take several trips out to Chittenango – thankfully, it wasn’t too far and he loved road trips in his Baby – to finalize things and get various services turned on at the house. Sam spent the time packing their stuff with Charlie’s enthusiastic help, though she wouldn’t wind up joining them right away since she had to finish out her contract and negotiate an early release for her apartment.

Together, Sam and Dean loaded up a rental truck. Even between the both of them, they didn’t have a lot of stuff, but it was still far too much for his precious car, Baby. It killed Dean to leave the Impala behind, but he knew it was only temporary and that she couldn’t be in any better hands than Bobby’s.

Of course, Dean should have known he couldn’t get away from town without  _ someone  _ throwing a party.

That someone was Jody, of course, in cahoots with Bobby. Dean rolled his eyes and wondered when they would ever get a move on things, aside from the occasional ‘sleepover’. He had a feeling it was the old coot holding things back. He shook his head. That was none of his business, he tried to assure himself. But Dean couldn’t help smiling gleefully whenever Jody flirted with his uncle or stood extra close to him, ‘in order to hear him’.

Then he was cornered by Donna who started bawling. “Oh sweet Dean, I’m sure gonna miss ya!”

Dean returned her hug. “I’m not moving across the country, Donna. Just going a couple of towns over. You all know we’ll be back.”

“You better come back and visit. Don’t forget us little guys when ya make it big, yeah?” Donna finally let go and Dean heaved a sigh of relief.

“I’m not aiming to make it big. I’m gonna manage a garage, Donna,” he said. What in hell did she think he was leaving town for?

“Oh yeah? I betcha y’all find a way anyway. Yeah? Best garage in the state. Beat out ol’ Bobby even.” She grinned at him good-naturedly and he couldn’t help the grin that answered her.

When he finally escaped her sugar sweet clutches, he ducked into another room for a breather and came face to face with Pastor Jim. He nearly groaned.  The Pastor – nice a man as he was – looked like he was about to deliver a sermon to Dean.

No, scratch that, he looked too nervous and unsure to be delivering a sermon. Now  _ Dean _ was anxious. “Hey Jim,” he said, “come to say goodbye to me and Sam too?”

“Of course, Dean. Though I’m sure you’ll both come back home from time to time to see your family. But don’t you worry about your uncle now. We’ll all be watching out for him, I promise,” the pastor assured in his quiet voice.

A tension Dean hadn’t even realized he was carrying drained out of his shoulders. “That’s good to hear. Thank you,” Dean said sincerely.

“Of course. And Dean, about yours and Sam’s plan -- I don't think I said it before, but I approve. I just have one question for you – while you play den mother to Sam and Charlie and all his new friends, who takes care of you?” Jim’s tone stayed quiet but Dean’s froze as he realized the unspoken words. Dean wondered if all the partygoers were thinking it. No, they couldn’t be. It wasn’t as if the rest of them were all privy to the things that had happened to Dean. The list of folks who  _ did  _ know was short. Bobby, Sam, Charlie, Jody, and Jim. Jody’s deputy, of course, some of the doctors and nurses at the hospital the next town over, and the lawyer too – but they didn’t know  _ him  _ like the rest of the town did.

“I’ll be fine,” Dean finally managed.

Jim nodded and placed a heavy, but gentle hand on Dean’s shoulder. “It’s no shame if you need help. Any time. If you don’t want to come all this way, I can give you a name and a phone number for someone I trust that lives closer to your new home.”

“Yeah, sure, that sounds like a good idea,” Dean agreed.

“Though, even if you don’t think you’ll need her, I urge you to at least meet her so that you’re not uncomfortable if a time arises that you do.” Jim was reaching into his pocket as he spoke, pulling out a card. Dean took it in reluctant fingers. He hated ‘seeing’ someone, even though Pastor Jim had pretty much been someone for Dean to see. He rarely talked about it at all, hated asking for help for himself, though with Jim’s help he’d gotten better about it.

_ Hmmm… Missouri Moseley. _ Well, not much you could really tell from a name, he supposed. And what did it hurt to meet her as Pastor Jim asked? Didn’t mean he ever had to call her again, right? Jim was just concerned for him. He cleared his throat and made a show of putting the card safely away in his own wallet. “Thanks, um, yeah, I’ll give her a call.”

“Good man,” Jim clapped him on the shoulder and smiled. “I think you’ll like her. And remember, there’s nothing wrong with asking for help from time to time. We’re all here for you, if you need us.”

Jim walked away and Dean stared after him. Had he given off some ‘I’m not okay’ vibe for Jim to assure him – not once, but  _ twice – _ that it was okay to ask for help? Was Dean really that stubborn? 

Okay, yeah, he was.

Thankfully, he and Sam managed to escape the party and all the well-meaning wishes and housewarming gifts with no more soul baring talks. The new gifts they decided to just load directly into the truck since there was plenty of room in there, and they got on their way.

They’d expected to unload the truck by themselves. Dean did not expect to see a man parked out on the street directly in front of their new house, a sold sticker slapped over the  _ For Sale  _ sign. The man was nearly as tall as Dean and a little bigger, with a close-cropped beard and a black cap on – not a baseball cap, Dean had no idea what kind of a hat that was – and he was leaning against a battered pick up, obviously waiting for them.

Dean turned into the driveway and shut off the truck. The doors creaked as he and Sam jumped out and slammed them shut behind them. Dean tossed Sam the house keys and he went to unlock everything, even as Dean headed for the back of the truck.

The man met him there and, in a southern drawl, he spoke, holding out his hand to shake, “Benny Lafitte. I work for Rufus. The old coots on his way to help, sent me on ahead.”

Bemusedly, Dean shook the man’s hand. Of course. Bobby must have asked his old buddy for help. “Dean Winchester – but you probably knew that already.”

Benny grinned lopsidedly. “Yeah, I did. So, this all, brotha?” He nodded his head at the truck.

Dean dropped his hand and reached for the lock. He rolled up the door and gestured inside. “Yup. Just this. We plan to do some goodwill shopping at some point for more furniture. But this will be good enough for now.”

“Yeah, I reckon. Don’t usually need anything fancy, I always say. Why don’t we get started? Trust me, Rufus won’t mind.” Benny chuckled and Dean joined in. He was gonna like Benny, he was sure of it. Sam joined them, introductions starting all over again, before they set to.

True to form, Rufus showed up when almost everything was done. Dean didn’t mind, it gave him time to get to know Benny. After all, they’d be working together, and eventually, Dean would be Benny’s boss.

He wondered if Benny knew that. At least he didn’t seem the type to be resentful if it happened. Definitely a plus. In the meantime, Rufus hadn’t come empty handed. He was loaded down with several boxes of pizza and a six pack in hand; everyone retired to the kitchen for a break, sitting on boxes and breaking out the paper plates.

“I think you boys might want to invest in a table and some chairs first thing,” Rufus noted. “My poor aching back can’t take this sitting on boxes shit.”

Benny snorted but didn’t say a word.

All in all, it was a great first night in the house.

Dean didn’t even have any nightmares.

They spent the next week getting the house ready and all their stuff unpacked. Dean made the trip back just long enough to drop off the rental truck and pick up his Baby. Then – with Benny volunteering his truck for any furniture finds so Dean wouldn’t worry about scratching the Impala – they scouted out the local thrift shops.

At the end of an exhausting week, Sam got the call he’d been waiting for. Dean nearly laughed as Sam vibrated out of his seat in his excitement and took off to the privacy of his own room. He returned a short time later, grinning madly.

“Hannah and Cas are in!” Sam said enthusiastically.

“Those are the two you were most worried about, right?” Dean asked. He hadn’t met Hannah yet, but with those eyes and that voice, he sure as hell remembered Cas.

Sam nodded firmly and dropped back into his seat. “Yeah. Hey, so, they love the idea, but aren’t actually sure their parents will go for it.”

“No problem, that’s why we worked out that ‘contract’ and left them my number, right? Any concerns, their parents can talk to me about it. I mean, I totally get it. But these guys are adults, right?” Dean blinked then looked at his brother. “Right? No more child prodigies?”

Sam laughed. “Nah, man, I was totally the baby of the group, even though Kevin looks like he is.”

“Well then, no problem.” Dean nodded firmly, turning back to his lunch. “And we already worked it out – if there’s an issue, and they need rescuin’? We can do that.”

“You are the best, Dean,” Sam said fervently.

“Yeah, I know. I’m awesome.” Dean smirked back.

Sam fake scowled back at his brother and gave him a swat to the shoulder. “You’re so fucking modest, too.”

Dean just sent him an open grin, mid-chew.

“Oh, gross Dean! What the hell!” Sam gagged and ran out of the room to the sound of Dean's laughter.

Phone calls flew back and forth from then on. Some to Sam, but a lot for Dean from concerned parents. He won most of them over – Cas’ mom was awesome, and Dean thought he was maybe a little afraid of Mrs. Tran and Mrs. Harvelle - but Hannah’s parents were a total loss.

The four of them made plans anyway. Hannah was determined to make his own decisions and that was something Dean could most definitely get behind.

A couple of days later, Sam found Dean replacing grout in the bathroom. “Hey, Dean, does that offer still stand – if they need help, we can go and get them, right?”

“Yeah, man, of course it does. I mean, I thought that’s what we were already doing, isn’t it?” Dean looked at him in confusion. Hadn’t they just finished paperwork to rent a truck so they could haul Cas and Hannah up at the same time? Sam shrugged and looked down uneasily, and Dean realized that Sam had asked just to have an excuse to talk about something. And by something... “What happened?”

“Hannah’s parents flipped and kicked him out.”

“Shit,” Dean leaned back, resting his hands on his knees where he was kneeling on the floor, “I don’t understand people like that. Well, you already know I got no problem being rescue detail.” Dean stood up and flexed his knees, then gently steered Sam into the kitchen. “Don’t worry, we’ll make your friends welcome here.”

Sam nodded sadly, but with relief. “So um, Dean… I know you already came out to Bobby and me a few years ago but… I guess, I mean…”

“It’s okay, Sam. We ain’t gonna kick you out, you know that.” Dean snagged a couple of soda’s from the fridge and handed Sam one of them.

“Yeah, I know. Is it always this hard?” Sam asked. He accepted the drink and fiddled with the tab, not looking at his brother.

“What? Coming out?” Dean clarified. Sam nodded and Dean shrugged, chugging half his soda in one go. “Y’know, I mean, I think it depends – both on the person coming out and who you’re coming out to. Plus the environment one is in.”

“Why’d you wait so long to tell me and Bobby? Were you afraid of us?” Sam finally looked up.

“No, well. I dunno. It wasn’t like that, exactly. I had no worries about you, but it was still so… so new to me that I just wasn’t comfortable with it. Charlie only knew because she helped me figure it out.” Dean finished his soda and tossed it in the can recycle.

“And Uncle Bobby?” Sam asked shrewdly.

“I didn’t  _ think  _ he’d toss us –  _ me _ \- out. But… yeah, I was a little scared. But then he… you remember when I dropped out of school?” Dean said nervously. He debated getting a beer but he didn’t want to set a bad precedent. Or a bad example.

Sam rolled his eyes. “Dean, it was a pretty big thing. Don’t think I could forget it if I tried. Even if I never got the straight deal as to why. I know _ something _ happened, and if you don’t wanna tell me, I’ll respect that.”

Dean nodded sharply. “Right. Well, um, something Bobby said to me soon after it happened – he had no idea I was bi, right? At least, I didn’t think he did. He’s pretty smart for an old coot. Maybe he did know, I never asked.” Dean took a breath, tried to stop his rambling and get back on track. “So yeah, he was trying to convince me to talk to Pastor Jim about…  _ stuff _ … and assured me that Jim wouldn’t judge me. Assured me that Jim wouldn’t care ‘who I liked’. And I think, Sam, it was his way of telling me he’d be okay with it too.”

“But you didn’t come out then. You didn’t come out till after Lisa.” Sam pointed out.

“Well yeah. I still felt uncomfortable with it. And I mean, I still liked girls and while I was with Lisa, what did it really matter if I liked boys too? That’s how I felt anyway.” Dean shrugged as if it didn’t really matter, but his gut was churning. He never really sat down and talked to Sammy about what had happened to him. But Sam wasn’t an idiot… but how much did the kid know? He had to know  _ something _ , even if he wasn’t pushing Dean for details. Right?

“So what made you finally decide to tell us? What changed?”

“I dunno, Sam,” Dean said quietly, “I just knew. Plus, it kinda felt like lying and I don’t like lying to the people I love.”

Sam nodded and took a deep breath. He’d finally opened his soda and had drunk all of it in one go. He tossed it from where he was standing and a small smile flitted across his face when he hit the recycle bin.

“Nice shot, Sammy,” Dean grinned.

“Thanks, Dean.” Sam’s nervous smile got a little calmer. “So um… I’m not quite sure yet if I’m bi, or if I’m pan. I’m finding the distinction between the two a little hard to grasp. But uh, I wanted you to know that.”

Dean’s grin widened. “Thanks, Sam, for telling me.” Dean pushed away from the counter and enveloped his brother in a hug. Sam buried his face in Dean’s shirt and Dean could feel him shaking a little. “Dude, were you worried about what I’d say?”

“No, I mean, how could I be? It would have been hypocritical of you to react badly but, I guess it’s like you said. It’s a comfortability thing and, well, that’s the first time I’ve ever said it out loud. I didn’t think it’d be so hard,” Sam explained.

“Hey, don’t worry about it. It is what it is,” Dean said, clapping Sammy on the back. “This place is gonna be a safe haven for both of us  _ and  _ for your friends. Anyone that has a problem with how we are… forget ‘em!”

“You’re the best, Dean!” Sam wrapped him in another hug and Dean blushed.

“Nah, nothin’ special, dude,” he protested.

“Yeah, you keep thinking that. But one day, you’ll find someone who’ll change your mind,” Sam said before he disappeared from the room.

Dean wondered if Sam was right.

Could he find someone who thought he was special? Would Dean believe them if they did? Dean sighed, shaking his head and tried to push the idea that he was damaged goods out of his mind. Pastor Jim had stressed over the years positive thinking and  _ not  _ looking down on himself.

Just because he hadn’t found anyone yet, didn’t mean he wouldn’t.

He’d just… have to have patience.

Dean let out a breath and shook his head ruefully. He’d never been known to have much patience. It was something he was working on. He leaned back against the countertop and let his eyes fall shut. In a way, it seemed like yesterday his entire life was falling apart -- every day, waking or sleeping moments, he was plagued by feeling so out of control, so broken and alone, like he had the moment he woke up in the grass. Despite Pastor Jim repeatedly telling him that he was going to be okay, he never fully believed it. 

He shifted, feeling his wallet pressing into his ass, and remembered the card he’d put there – was it only two weeks ago?. He wondered,  _ Should I call Missouri? _

He pondered that idea for a few moments before finally deciding he should. He didn’t actually think he needed therapy right now for any particular reason but, Pastor Jim was probably right that he should meet her. “ _ But remember, baby steps, Dean. This is gonna be slow. And you feel good now, but it’s temporary. What we’re going to do is work on making it not temporary” _

Baby steps turned into miles, and Dean realized he was happy. He was proud of how far he’d come. True, he had the feeling his life was about to be filled with ups and downs he wasn’t remotely prepared for, but for once that didn’t fill him with dread.

He pulled the card out of his wallet, along with his phone from his pocket, and smiled. So, maybe he should prepare. He was ready for what life had to throw at him.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know, its a little weird having the chapter named after himself but it felt the most right, because Dean's healing and becoming comfortable with himself. 
> 
> Also, Lotrspnfangirl thought it was a great thing to do, reminding and bringing everything full circle with the CBB again (since the last chapter there is also Dean)
> 
> Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed the story. It was a bit difficult, for some reason, getting it to line up with the other one, but in the end, I'm glad I finished it and happy with how it came out and once again - a big thanks to all of you who helped out with this and kept me going!
> 
> BONUS - this is the promo pic I made for the story (if you follow me on tumblr, you'll have already seen it, but just in case you don't, here it is):
> 
>   
>   
> 

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I titled the chapter Alastair. No, we don't find out that it WAS him in this chapter but i mean...*looks up at the tags and relationships* yeah, i figure it was gonna be pretty obvious.
> 
> Note - for those of you who've read I'm Broken, you'll note that i'm doing the same thing with the chapter titles in this one as I did in that one. I wanted to kind of use it to tie the fics together symbolically in another way. Just like I'm Broken - these names as titles are people who've affected Dean in some manner during that chapter. Some chapters could easily have had multiple names.
> 
> **About the Headers - why don't they match?**
> 
> Ahahaha....because I'm an idiot that didn't realize what kind of headers my artist was making and didn't tell her till I finished editing (which was 24 hours before posting) what titles I had chosen. As I mentioned, there were multiple chapters where choices were hard to settle on. we just happened to settle on different ones. 
> 
> But it's okay, because it just helps illustrate how many people have an impact on Dean's life. (and i don't want her to change them either, cause i really like them :D )


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